Island Paradise
by SpecialNewsBulletin
Summary: The purpose of this collaborative story is to highlight various interactions between the seven castaways from a variety of perspectives. Each chapter will be based on an episode, in the order they aired. Although romance is not intended to be the focus of this story, some chapters may contain hints of MAP, as it is being written by a group of writers who prefer that pairing.
1. Two On A Raft

**Island Paradise****  
**_**Story introductions, story tags, and possibly missing scenes written by various authors for all 98 episodes (in broadcast order), "Here on Gilligan's Isle!"**__**  
**__**Entire series-canon-based, extended universe (filling in the blanks) as their story unfolds.**_

**Episode Tag – Two on a Raft**

"Skipper gone!" Gilligan, one smart Marubi!" The first mate smiled to himself and let off one more horrific growl, just in case one of the other six castaways had come back to the cave… but none of them did.

Grinning again, Gilligan carefully climbed back into the cave he had just come from and grabbed his clothes. He couldn't leave them behind! They were his uniform! He had other clothing on the boat, all looking the same… his uniforms, really, but who knew how long they would be here? Besides, this was his big brother's shirt. Mark had left it in Hawaii the last time his family had visited, and Gilligan had never mailed it back… he would kill him if he lost or damaged it!

"Wonder if Mark thinks I am dead now?" Gilligan pondered, "Not to mention, Mom, Dad and Peggy… they must be worried to death about me… I know I am!" He changed quickly and tossed the native paraphernalia and mask back in the cave. They might need it again someday.

Suddenly he was in a hurry to get back to the beach, and the wreck of the Minnow. Breaking into a run, he started in the direction of the camp, and his fellow castaways.

oOo

The sun was setting by the time Gilligan reached the Minnow, but he could see that someone, most likely the Skipper, had started a fire, and the others were grouped around it. Professor Hinkley, the science teacher, was grilling a large fish over the flame. When his captain saw him coming, he ran toward him. The first mate started to make an about-face, not wanting a cap-slap, or a balling out, but to his surprise, the Skipper stopped him and enveloped him in a big, enthusiastic, teddy bear hug. The others were close behind him, all welcoming Gilligan with open arms.

"Little Buddy!" the Skipper cried, "You're okay? You got away?"

"What happened to the Marubi warrior, lad?" Mr. Howell added, looking around nervously, "He isn't following you, is he?"

"I hope not!" Mrs. Howell sniffed, "I am not dressed properly to meet anyone!"

"We were worried about you, Gilligan!" Ginger and Mary Ann said together, and as a group, they led him toward the crackling fire. Having taken the fish from the flames and placing it on a large serving tray taken from the Minnow, the Professor gave a relieved sigh.

"Amazing you got away from him, Gilligan… the Marubi are fierce warriors, and killers."

"We weren't going to leave you all alone, Little Buddy," the Skipper added, "But the passenger's safety comes first, as you well know. I needed to get everyone back to where it was safe, and then we men were going to come and rescue you."

"I was going to stay behind and prepare for the headless… ahh… wounded!" Mr. Howell put in quickly, and Mrs. Howell nodded. Her husband was known as 'The Wolf of Wall Street,' but was not in any way a wolf when it came to bravery, or fearlessness.

"Uhm… he's gone now…" Gilligan hedged. I don't think he is on the island anymore; guess nobody is, but us!"

"He must have had an outrigger canoe of some kind hiding at the lagoon," Roy Hinkley shook his head, "Too bad we didn't locate it first… one or two of us could try to leave this place… again."

"That headhunter probably knows something about sailing in the ocean we don't, if he got away," Mary Ann added. "The raft you two built didn't really get past the tides and current, right?"

"Yeah… not to mention the sharks," Gilligan shuddered.

"Right," the Professor nodded. "I need to do a lot more research before we attempt such a thing again."

"Ya got that right…" Gilligan said. "Say, that fish smells good. "Is it ready to eat?"

"A few minutes, more, I think," The scientist, who had returned to the fire ahead of the others, kneeled, and held the fish back over the flame. "The Skipper found a couple of cans of green beans to go with it, too, and Ginger and Mary Ann located a pineapple patch nearby. So that's the menu for this evening!"

"Yum!" was Gilligan's only reply, and they all headed toward the fire… and food.

oOo

After dinner, The Skipper found four blankets and seven sheets in the linen storage cabinet onboard his wrecked ship, and brought them out where everyone had gathered around the fire.

"This is it, folks… all we have in the way of bedding. Sorry I didn't remember to distribute them before Gilligan and I set out on the raft! I would like to suggest we spread the sheets out on the ground as much as possible and you five use the blankets as needed. Gilligan and I can make do on just the ground."

Ginger and Mary Ann shook their heads.

"You have to sleep on something!" they both protested, "There are bugs and crabs and other creatures in the sand. You have to have some protection!"

"They're right. Roy Hinkley stated flatly, and Mr. and Mrs. Howell, shrugging their shoulders elegantly, gave their assent as well.

Once everyone was settled, and in their places for the night, Gilligan threw another log on the fire that had started to dwindle, and the Skipper cleared his throat.

"Folks, I would like to hope we will find a way off this island, or be rescued soon… I mean, we haven't heard anything on the radio yet about the search for us being called off… and Gilligan and I will do everything in our power to make a rescue come to pass, but in the meantime, I think it would be nice if we all knew at least a little about each other… don't you?"

"I already know about you, Skipper…" Gilligan cut in, "I've been working for you for over a year, and before that, we were both in the navy, don't you remember?"

The Skipper rolled his eyes heavenward and gave a sigh.

"Of course I do, Gilligan! But our passengers don't!"

"Oh… Hmm," the first mate responded, "I see… I think!"

"Now as I was saying…" the Skipper continued, "My name is Jonas Grumby, but everyone calls me 'Skipper.' I'm an old navy man, as the saying goes… and served in the navy and fought in World War Two in the South Pacific, starting as a cook, but eventually, I rose to the rank of captain. I also fought at Guadalcanal, but that's another story."

"Impressive," the Professor said, "Most commendable."

"The Skipper had three ships shot out from under him by the Japanese fleet!" Gilligan added. "I wasn't there for that, though… I was still a kid. I met him later, when I joined up. No war going on then."

"Yeah, but you still managed to save my life, Gilligan," Grumby interrupted him, "A depth charge had broken loose from its fastenings on the deck of our destroyer, and started rolling toward me… Gilligan pushed me out of the way, just in time! He broke his leg doing it, too!" He shrugged. That's about it. I retired, and used my commission to buy the Minnow and start my own tour business. Gilligan followed me, and became my first mate on the Minnow, but enough about me. Gilligan, why don't you tell the folks a little about yourself?"

"Who, me?" Gilligan looked at the others. "Someone else can go. I don't have that much to say."

"Then you best go next and get it out of the way, Gilligan, my boy," Thurston Howell put in.

"Yes, do…" Mrs. Howell said. "Everyone has something to say, even if it isn't anything!"

Gillian scratched his head.

"Well, I'm Gilligan…"

"Gilligan what?" Mary Ann blurted out.

"Or what, Gilligan, for that matter," Ginger added.

"I'm just Gilligan," the young man answered, "Have been since I joined the navy. I don't really like my first name. Just Gilligan," he said firmly, and continued before anyone else could question the point. "I was born in Media, Pennsylvania. I lived my whole life there, until I joined the navy. I have an older brother named Mark, and a younger sister named Peggy. There's two years between each of us being born. My mom, and dad and sister and brother all still live in Media. Peggy got married last year, to a guy I went to school with, but Mark isn't married or engaged or anything. He still lives with mom and dad." He took another slice of pineapple and stared at it for a moment. "This would taste really good dipped in chocolate sauce," he mused. "Do we have any, Skipper?" he asked, taking a bite, anyway.

"No, we don't," his captain answered shortly. "Continue, Gilligan."

"Okay." Gilligan swallowed. "Like I said, I joined the navy, served a hitch, met the Skipper, left the navy, and have been working for him ever since."

"And you saved his life once," Mary Ann reminded him.

"And he won a Medal of Honor for it!" the Skipper was quick to say.

"Anything else?" Mr. Howell asked, waving away some large flying insect. "Drat these mosquitoes!"

"I like comic books, collecting butterflies, animals, watching television, hot dogs, licorice whips, and rock-and-roll."

"Heavens!" "Mrs. Howell drew a deep breath, "How ghastly!"

"And I can be a little clumsy, sometimes," Gilligan added sheepishly.

Roy Hinkley raised one eyebrow, but said nothing. _This, we already knew,_ he thought to himself.

"That's about it," Gilligan shrugged, "Who next?"

"I am," Thurston Howell the Third started to stand, but his wife laid a hand on his leg and he settled to his place on the blanket again. "As you already know, if you know anything, I am Thurston Howell the Third, and this…" he turned to his wife, "Is _Mrs._ Thurston Howell the Third."

"I figured that out some time back…" Ginger whispered to Mary Ann, seated next to her. "Boy, he's a little on the snooty side, isn't he?"

"Oh, at least a little!" Mary Ann whispered back, and grinned at the redhead.

"Lovey and I have been married for eighteen… no, fifteen… no, twenty years. I know, because we eloped in 1944, the day Consolidated General's stock jumped seventeen points!"

"How… romantic…" Ginger stuttered, and then rolled her eyes.

"I'm the Chairman of the Board for Howell Corporation, which has six… no… twelve subsidiary corporations, and Lovey and I make our home anywhere we choose… Palm Beach, Paris, Newport, New York… we have homes in all fifty states. I am a great golfer, and…" he paused. "…And I am a Harvard graduate!"

"Fascinating," Professor Hinkley murmured, and rubbed his chin, wondering if he should mention his six degrees to this little group… _he didn't want to sound as pompous and stuck up as this Howell character!_

Mrs. Howell surreptitiously dug a not-so-gentle elbow in her husband's side.

"I believe I should go next, Thurston?"

Her husband looked slightly abashed.

"By all means, my dear!"

"As Thurston said, my name is Mrs. Thurston Howell the Third… known as Lovey Howell to all my friends who are in the Social Register, of course, not to mention Princess Grace, the Prince of Monaco, The Duke of Troy and Prince Phillip, naturally…" She paused for a moment and sipped from a cup of water. "I would like to say, for as long as we are stranded on this God-forsaken island, I insist we all observe the rules of etiquette… one will be dressed properly for all social functions, and preserve all rules of decorum."

"But what about you, yourself?" Ginger asked.

"Chiefly, I am _Mrs. Thurston Howell the Third,"_ Mrs. Howell answered, an edge to her voice, and she stared at the movie star for a moment through her lorgnette. "But if you must have more information, I will tell you, back in civilization, I have volunteered as a nurse's aide, and have been voted the head for many a charitable institution, and was once voted Queen of the Pitted Prune Bowl Parade!"

"Anything else?" the Skipper asked, hiding a smile at the rich woman's last comment.

"I think that's quite enough for now," she answered. Miss… or is it Mrs. Grant… as it is ladies first, would you care to go next?"

"Naturally," movie star answered, and for a moment, she looked like she was ready to launch into a scene from one of her movies. "It's _Miss,_ by the way."

"Unusual... for show business… people," Mrs. Howell shot back, not put off in the least.

"_I'm a lady, too,"_ Mary Ann Summers muttered, and then bit her tongue, hoping that nobody had heard her comment. She felt a soothing pat on her back, but when she turned around, whoever it was (Ginger, the Professor and the Skipper were all within arm's reach) had removed their hand.

"Well, as I am sure you all know, I am Ginger Grant… actress." the movie star began. "Normally I would give you all a copy of my resume, headshot and recent credits, but I don't have any of that with me… Hadn't planned on getting shipwrecked, after all…" She gave the Skipper a look, but he turned away, rotating back only after he had thrown another log on the fire. "Sorry, Skipper… I guess I shouldn't have said it quite that way!" She gazed for a moment at the small group. "I guess I could give you all my autograph, if you want!"

"That would be cool, Ginger," said Gilligan, but the actress continued without acknowledging the first mate.

"I've been here in Hawaii for a nightclub singing engagement. As a matter of fact, I took this boat tour on a lark… I had ducked out the back door of the club, after my matinee performance, to get away from all my fans, saw the Skipper's boat…"

"She's called _The Minnow_…" Gilligan put in, but the movie star hardly paused.

"…His boat, and decided, on a whim to take the tour." She shrugged. "Not my best idea, I guess."

"What movies have you been in, Ginger?" Roy Hinkley asked, politely. "I confess I don't get to the movies much. Usually I am too busy, between teaching and trying to get my own private research done, to attend the cinema on a continuous basis."

"I thought everyone would know what I have starred in," the redhead pouted. "But I would be happy to act out the scenes to all my movies for you, Professor!" She gave the scientist a wink. "We could start with _The Hula Girl and the Fullback,_ and then _Mohawk Over the Moon…"_

"_Rain Dancers of Rango Rango _is more fun…" Gilligan interjected, and there's that one movie you did where everyone in the movie dies…"

"Maybe later, Gilligan?" Mary Ann interrupted him, wondering if such a thing could happen to the seven of them, "It is getting kind of late, and I'm a little tired." She paused. "Anything else, Ginger?"

"My TV credits…" Ginger started up again.

"I meant about you, personally?"

"Oh. Well, if you insist… both my parents live in Alaska. I haven't seen them in a long time… I moved to Hollywood to pursue acting when I was eighteen. I studied with Strasberg, you know. I have a sister, Cinnamon, two years older than I am. She was going to be an actress, too. We came to Hollywood together, but when she was working on her fourth movie assignment, still no more than an extra, out of nowhere she meets this producer, and they got married... let me think… about ten years ago." She's got four kids now."

"Do you ever go visit them?" Mrs. Howell asked.

"Not often. Her husband I dated a few times. It's… awkward." The movie-star's beautiful mouth settled in a thin line.

"And?" Mr. Howell pressed.

"Just that I had a roommate back in Hollywood… Debbie Dawson. Guess she'll make off with all the evening gowns I didn't bring to Hawaii with me," Ginger added, a bitter edge to her voice. "She's that type!"

"Now, now… let's not give up hope just yet, shall we?" Jonas Grumby said, in the heartiest voice he could muster. "Cheer up, Ginger! Professor Hinkley… Care to tell us about yourself?"

"Mary Ann… Miss Summers should go before I do," the scientist protested.

"You go ahead," the farm-girl waved a hand in his direction. "I'm not sure what to say, anyway."

Still looking a little doubtfully for a moment at the pretty brunette, the scientist began:

"My name is Professor Roy Hinkley, and I live in Cleveland, Ohio, where I teach high school science and American history at Sherwood High School."

"Have you been doing that long?" Mrs. Howell asked, "I always thought teaching could be such a rewarding experience! In the right environment, that is. I attended Vassar, you know."

"No, I didn't," Professor Hinkley answered. "I'm afraid my public high school is nothing like Vassar. Still, for what it is, I enjoy it."

"And what are your degrees, Professor?" Mr. Howell probed.

"I don't like to boast…" Hinkley began.

"Nonsense… are you degreed or not, man?"

"Very well… I have a B.A. from USC, a B.S. from UCLA, a M.A. from SMU and my Ph.D is from TCU… which I received when I was twenty five."

"Heavens! An egghead!" the millionaire exclaimed.

"How did you end up in Hawaii, Professor?" Mary Ann asked from her corner, cutting in on any more 'observations' from Mr. Howell.

"The same way many do, I suppose, my dear," he answered, "I saved up a little every month from my salary at the school. I wanted to take a small sabbatical to write my book."

"A whole book?" Ginger asked, "About your teaching job? Like _The Blackboard Jungle?"_

The Professor shook his head slightly.

"No, nothing as dramatic as that… Sherwood High is a fairly tranquil school and environment. "No… I was planning on calling my book, _Fun With Ferns."_

"You mean, like the plants?" Ginger wrinkled her nose.

"Exactly. They are quite fascinating… Why, did you know I have found a species here on the island that I have never seen before, except in my Botany book? If I can transplant it, or preserve it in some other way, it will be the talk of the school when I get home!"

"Assuming we do," Gilligan put in. "But I am glad you found something interesting here, Professor."

"Thank you, Gilligan." He smiled at the young seaman and then turned to the youngest member of their group. "Miss Summers? I believe it is your turn, now."

The girl blushed under her tan.

"Thanks, Professor." She was quiet for a moment. "It's late, and I don't know that my background is anything like all of yours!"

"It shouldn't be," the Skipper said kindly. "Life would be pretty boring if we were all the same, now wouldn't it?"

"I suppose…" Mary Ann agreed, smiling back at him.

"Go on, dear," Mrs. Howell put in.

"I was born and raised on a farm in Winfield, Kansas," Mary Ann began. "I live with my Uncle George, Aunt Martha and my mom there."

"No brothers or sisters?" Gilligan asked.

"Nope," the girl shook her head. "I had a younger brother and sister; twins, but they both died when I was about five. I don't remember them too well."

"I'm so sorry," Roy Hinkley murmured, "How very sad! What about your father, my dear?

"He passed away when I was about sixteen," the girl answered softly, "After… after… well, things weren't going so well on our farm then. Not my aunt and uncle's place… my parent's and my place. My father… died, and my mother and I went to live with my aunt and uncle."

"What kind of farm do you have?" Gilligan asked, "Did you have cows and horses, and pigs, and ducks and chickens and animals like that? I love animals!"

"Some of _all_ of those you just said," Mary Ann smiled. "But mostly, we grow corn and wheat."

"But you didn't do all the work on the farm, did you?" Ginger asked, uncertainly, "That would be too much for one person, right?"

"My aunt and uncle had a few field hands," the girl explained, "But I took care of the horses, milked the cows, tended to the chickens and did the gardening and stuff. Pretty much managed the place. Learning about a lot of it in 4-H helped, though. My aunt and uncle and mom wanted me to learn a trade I could always count on," she sighed. "I worked as a clerk at the Winfield General Store, too… I wanted to major in Business and Accounting, but I didn't get very far. Uncle George thought college was a waste on a girl."

"Sounds like a rather primitive life, my dear," the Professor commented, "How did you end up in Hawaii?"

"Oh! That was exciting!" Mary Ann's eyes sparkled. "The Elks Club sponsored a cooking contest. You entered the contest, and had to bake an original specialty dessert. I entered, and won first place! The prize was free trip to Hawaii. The airfare, hotel, and two meals a day for a week were paid for, and I got $100 in spending money!"

"But you only got a trip for one?" Ginger asked, "That doesn't sound like too much fun! You should have cashed in your ticket and kept the money, since it wasn't for two."

"How gauche…" Lovey Howell murmured, but the only one who heard her was her husband.

"It was a non-refundable ticket," Mary Ann answered. "Besides, I had never been outside Winfield. I really wanted to go, even if it was by myself. I'm over twenty-one… twenty-three, in fact, and I told my family I was going. The cows and chickens wouldn't die in a week, after all!" she frowned. "I wonder who is taking care of them? And my cat? Pandora is going to miss me. I know she will… she's _my_ cat… my _pet cat!_ Mom' will probably throw her out in the barn and make her fend for herself!" A small tear trailed down her cheek.

"Don't worry, Mary Ann!" Gilligan patted her shoulder comfortingly. "She'll be fine! We'll be home…" he glanced at the Skipper, "…just any time now!"

Nobody said anything for a while, and all of them stared into the flames of the waning fire, and listened to all the unfamiliar island night-sounds.

"Guess we better call it an evening, folks, the captain of the Minnow said finally, "We have a big day tomorrow."

With very little complaint, the seven stranded castaways stretched out on the ground, covered themselves as best they could, and fell into a sound, if not entirely restful, sleep.


	2. Home Sweet Hut

The night was humid and hot, although the temperature was beginning to drop as the storm clouds accumulated outside. At the moment, however, the storm was inside, within the blanket confines of the Howell "bedroom" in the community hut. A large curler was indignantly hurled in the face of Thurston Howell.

"You never change, do you?" said his wife. "A pretty girl looks at you and you go all goopy on her!"

"Lovey, it was an accident!"

"Accident, nothing! I saw you peeking through the crack at that Grant woman."

"Lovey! Dear! How dare you insinuate such a thing!"

She tied a scarf around her head and turned to face him, seething. "You think I don't know about your string of starlets? And those nicknames. Angel of Broadway. Wolf of Wall Street. I _know_ what kind of wolf they meant!"

"The business kind, dear! I only have eyes for you!" He clutched his heart and batted his eyes to demonstrate earnestness, but Mrs. Howell was not to be swayed.

"It was easy to overlook your behavior when we lived in the Hamptons, but I'll be damned if I have to witness it firsthand in this nasty little servant's hut!"

Her husband yanked off his ascot and peeled off his shoes and socks, shaking the sand out of them. He hurled one toward the wall separating the Howell room from the Professor's. The impact hit the Professor on the back.

"KNOCK IT OFF!" shouted an angry baritone from the other side.

"See? You're causing a commotion, Lovey," Mr. Howell said. "Jealousy was never becoming on you. Adds wrinkles."

Mrs. Howell slapped some lotion on her arm and rubbed it into her skin. She had gotten a touch of sunburn. She didn't do well in the tropical sunshine. The Wentworths had very delicate complexions.

"If we are to get our own hut I demand that we sleep in twin beds from now on!" she countered. "You can share your marriage bed with your one true love…

"Money?"

"TEDDY!" She hurled the stuffed bear as hard as she could, right out the door frame.

"No! Not my TEDDY!" Mr. Howell shouted.

"I don't want another estate!" she yelled. "I'll live with the girls! I simply adooored my sorority. And now I remember why!"

-o0o-

_Minutes earlier_

Ginger Grant was well aware of Mr. Howell, who was surreptitiously peeking through the crack of the hanging blanket. She gave him a little peep and a wink, kicking up her ankle flirtatiously.

"Ginger!" Mary Ann scolded in a whisper. "You're horrible. He's MARRIED."

"So were most of the others," Ginger giggled, shimmying into her blanket wrap. Mary Ann averted her eyes. It felt like a bad dream, trapped in a palm frond hut with a famous movie star, naked.

"What, you a prude or something?" Ginger asked, a bit defensively.

"I just think it's really inappropriate that you're…don't you have a slip or something to sleep in?" She put her hand over her eyes as she got an eyeful of The Real Ginger Grant.

"Slip? Under that gown? Honey. You have no idea how little room there is in there. Besides, I'm not paid to be contained." She hummed a few bars of "Let Me Entertain You."

Mary Ann rifled through her suitcase in the dim candlelight. She couldn't find anything to sleep in, and the last thing she wanted to do was have a bunch of strangers accidentally see her nude in case a breeze blew through the communal hut. It was already surreal sharing a room with the same woman she had seen starring in _Sing A Song of Sing-Sing _not two months ago. A recent date had taken her to see it, and spent the rest of the evening gushing about how beautiful that Ginger Grant was, and asking Mary Ann if she would try wearing her hair like that.

Mary Ann suspected that boy would be incredibly jealous right now.

Still, this didn't solve her sleepwear conundrum. _Some Girl Scout I made,_ she thought. _Be prepared. I forgot to bring a nightie on my trip!_

"What are you rummaging around for?" Ginger dabbed a bit of perfume on her neck.

"I can't find a nightgown!" Mary Ann fretted.

"So what?" Ginger shrugged. "It's hot here."

"I just don't feel comfortable, is all," Mary Ann said. "In Kansas, we sleep with clothes."

Ginger rolled her eyes and sunk into her mattress, fluffing up the makeshift grass pillow she had stuffed earlier. "Well, I don't have anything. Doesn't Mrs. Howell have a spare peignoir or something you can borrow? You two are about the same height."

Mary Ann gasped. "I can't ask for a thing like that from a stranger!"

"Suit yourself," Ginger replied, settling in, her back turned toward Mary Ann.

Mary Ann tried to get comfortable in her shorts and crop top, but she was itchy and she felt too confined in her clothes. She shifted around a bit, trying to settle in a comfortable position.

Ginger was sound asleep within minutes. Mary Ann could hear her softly snoring. She could hear the Howells continuing their argument next door. That didn't help matters much. She missed home. She missed the gigantic attic in the big old farmhouse where she would go read on rainy days. She missed her family. She missed her little cat, Pandora, and was worried about her. It was the first time she'd ever gone away from home, and now she wasn't sure if she was ever going back.

She thought about her mother back home, who must think she was dead. She remembered the awful day that Jerry, the hired hand, found her father in the barn, and how their world had crashed.

The idea that she couldn't call or write to her mother to reassure her she was alive and well finally hit Mary Ann as cruelly as the horrific tidal wave that had washed them ashore.

She barely remembered when her siblings passed away, but she did remember how her mother had been depressed for a long time. With no children left, she must be devastated and afraid for the state of the farm.

She was truly worried about her mother's fragility right now. A loss like this could send her over the edge, too. She hoped Aunt Martha and Uncle George would help her.

Feeling lonely, afraid, and uncomfortable, Mary Ann started to cry into her pillow.

-o0o-

_Minutes earlier_

"You never pay attention to me anymore! You don't look at me like you do these young things! You did it at home and you're doing it here."

"Mary Ann is a child!"

"You know who I'm talking about! And don't you lie to me! You've done it before! You bought your secretary that fur coat!"

"For BEING SUCH A GOOD PERSONAL SECRETARY!" he thundered.

"HOW GOOD? HOW PERSONAL?" A pillow was thrown at the man's face, knocking the curtain separating their room from the Professor's and the girls' rooms. Once more, the pillow hit the Professor through the blanket. He sat up and ran his fingers through his hair.

Having been so used to living alone all these years, it was a rude awakening to have to share space with six others. He liked the little brunette named Mary Ann. The movie star he recognized a bit from movie posters around campus, but he couldn't remember seeing any of her films. The others seemed pleasant enough, but living with them was another story. The Howells' bickering reminded him too much of the fights his own parents used to get into when he was a kid.

_What I wouldn't give to have been marooned here alone!_ He thought. He made a note to himself to find shelter in a nearby cave the next day. He put a pillow over his head, trying to muffle out the noise.

He heard Mary Ann and Ginger in the next room, arguing over clothes.

"I can't find a nightgown!" Mary Ann fretted.

"So what?" Ginger shrugged. "It's hot here."

"I just don't feel comfortable, is all," Mary Ann said. "In Kansas, we sleep with clothes."

The Professor's eyes opened wide as the conversation continued. That Ginger Grant was currently humming some show tune. He sighed heavily, trying desperately to get some shut-eye.

He felt the blanket shift slightly against his back as he heard a rustle on the cot a few feet away. Presently, he could hear her crying next to him. His heart softened as she sniffled. He remembered her bleak story the night before when everyone was around the bonfire, and wondered if anyone else knew or cared that she was crying.

_Poor thing_, he thought. He hadn't considered that the situation they were in might have been hard on her. It didn't sound as if she'd been away from the farm much, and he wondered what her family was going through with her loss.

He'd been so used to dealing with homesick Boy Scouts on field trips over the years, and the answer to that was always, "Be a man! Stiff upper lip!" But he supposed it was different for women. He listened again. She was still sniffling.

The Professor thought a second, and decided that maybe one of his shirts might be comfortable for her. He was having trouble himself, sleeping on the scratchy palm fronds with no shirt.

-o0o-

Suddenly, Mary Ann felt a quiet "knock" on the dividing blanket ripple through their makeshift bedroom. She lit a candle, tiptoed over to the loose blanket separating the girls' room from the Professor's, and pulled the cloth to the side.

"Hi," she whispered guiltily, wiping her tears. "Sorry, are we keeping you up?"

"Yes, Miss Summers," he whispered sternly, with a scowl on his face.

"Sorry," she said sheepishly. She started to close the curtain, but he stopped her, the scowl on his face softening a bit.

"Hey. I couldn't help but overhear," he began, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. "Ahh…I may have a solution for your particular situation."

He handed her a neatly folded Oxford shirt, identical to the one he was wearing. "To sleep in," he added, in case she didn't understand why he was giving it to her.

Mary Ann was pleasantly surprised. She had to admit she hadn't been exactly sure how to read the Professor - he seemed pleasant, but easily irritated, especially by that nice Gilligan. But this gesture of friendship was very kind of him, indeed.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Hinkley," she said, trying not to wake Ginger. "This is very sweet of you. But won't you need it?"

"Oh, don't worry about me, Miss Summers. I packed six identical shirts. I'll be fine."

"You don't have to call me Miss Summers. That makes me sound like an old lady. Mary Ann is fine." She smiled warmly. Maybe he was nice, after all.

He grinned in earnest for the first time since they were marooned. "Well, then, you can just call me 'Professor.'"

"Thanks, Professor. I appreciate it."

"Goodnight, dear."

She shook his hand firmly. He retreated back into his room.

As she slipped the shirt over her head, she noticed that it smelled very nice and clean. He must have packed cedar chips in his suitcase. His shirt smelled a little like the farmhouse attic back home. Cedar was a strangely comforting scent to her, and she secretly rather liked being enveloped by it. She settled back on her cot, and within moments she was drifting off to sleep in the humid tropical night, wondering if he might have been the one who patted her on the back. She hoped it was.

-o0o-

You can have the bedroom to yourself and I'll sleep out HERE tonight!" Mr. Howell roared.

"You can sleep out there tomorrow night, too!" Mrs Howell shouted.

"WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE?" roared the Skipper, as he and Gilligan entered the common room.

Everyone woke up with a start at the deep, booming voice.

That was it.

The Professor put his shirt back on and stomped out to confront the feuding couple.

"WHEN YOU GET AROUND TO ME, I'D LIKE TO SAY PIPE DOWN, AND GET TO SLEEP!"

"NOBODY ASKED FOR YOUR OPINION!" countered Mr. Howell.

Ginger came out, clutching the blanket for "modesty," and Mary Ann, now clad in her new nightshirt, soon followed as the rest fought and argued over the common space.

No one ended up sleeping well that night, except Teddy.


	3. Voo Doo Something To Me

Many thanks to Kathy M., my advisor on several levels, for this chapter.

_0pening dialogue transcribed directly from the GI episode_

**VOODOO SOMETHING TO ME**

_Mary Ann: "How many flares do we have left?"_

_The Professor: "About a hundred and fifty."_

_The Skipper: "Everybody ready? Stand by… Ready… Fire!"_

_The Professor: "Now let's pray somebody saw our signal…"_

_**Two days later:**_

Hey, Gilligan! What's the big idea?" the Skipper asked, looking at the way Gilligan was dressed in a straw 'skirt' and no shirt.

"Maybe we should keep it this way," the first mate explained, "You seemed to like me better as a chimp!"

"Oh, Gilligan!" the other castaways cried, more or less together, and the Skipper came running toward his first mate.

"Gilligan, I want you to know that you're forgiven. Now I may spout off at you, but you're at the top of the list with me."

"Skipper… You don't know how much that means to me; coming from a man I will always look up to," Gilligan answered happily.

"You mean that, Little Buddy?" the Skipper asked, putting an arm around Gilligan's shoulders as they started toward the breakfast table, "You'll really always look up to me?"

Jonas Grumby's foot hit the trip wire of the trap Gilligan had prepared earlier, and went flying upside down into the air; caught… again!

"Way up!" the first mate went on.

-o-O-o-

It didn't take long to release the Skipper once more, and for Gilligan to retrieve his clothes from the little chimp that he had dubbed "Austin," and dress himself in his usual garb.

"Why Austin?" the Professor asked, as Gilligan fed his new friend another banana.

"He reminds me of my fifth grade Social Studies teacher… Mr. Austin."

"Good heavens," the teacher shook his head, "I hope there isn't a troop of monkeys with my name running around Cleveland!"

The group all laughed, and basked in the sunny, blue sky of the tropical morning, forgetting for a few minutes that they were still stranded on an uncharted tropical island until they heard a radio announcement that all local Hawaii based sea vessels involved in their search were being called back to shore. The search for the Captain, crew and passengers of the Minnow, was now completely abandoned. There was a sniff from Mary Ann and a slight moan from Ginger. Ignoring the two women, the Skipper switched off the radio, turned to the small cooking fire, removed a pot of coffee, and held it up.

"Any one for java?" he asked. "Speak up; this is your last chance. I used the last of the coffee supply this morning. From now on its fruit juices, coconut milk, or water, until we get off this island."

"Me!" everyone cried, and soon their coconut cups were full.

They savored the hot beverage slowly. No one said anything for a few minutes, but finally, Gilligan spoke:

"Professor?"

"Yes, Gilligan?"

"Can… I mean, may I ask you something?"

"Ask me anything you want, Gilligan. But I don't promise to answer it. Is that fair?"

"Yeah, but I hope you do." The young man stopped speaking for a moment and started to turn red, and it wasn't the tropical sun doing it, either.

"Gilligan…" the Skipper started to say, but suddenly the first mate found his voice.

"Did you mean what you said last night?"

The scientist scratched his head, puzzled, and tried to remember if he had said anything overly insulting to Gilligan after he had shot the signal gun into the hut containing their supply of flares.

"Gilligan, I am having difficulty comprehending your inquiry."

"Huh?"

"I don't understand your question. What is it you think I said?"

Gilligan bit his lip for a moment, and Mary Ann put a hand on his shoulder.

"Gilligan, nobody is going to bite you. Just ask the Professor your question."

"Professor, do you believe in God?" There… he had said it.

_Now, where in the blue-eyed world is this question coming from?_ The scientist wondered, and decided to be candid with the young man.

"Yes, I do, Gilligan, but what makes you ask?"

"Oh… it's what you said the other night."

"Hmm?"

"You said it when we shot off the flare. You said, _"Now let's pray somebody saw our signal." _I just that was kind of funny…"

"Do you think praying is funny, Gilligan?" Mr. Howell cut in.

"Oh, no…" Gilligan protested, "Praying isn't funny, I just thought it was kind of weird…"

"Oh… praying is 'weird'?" the Skipper started to growl. "Gilligan…"

The first mate rolled his eyes and waved a hand in the air.

"No, no, no! You guys aren't letting me finish. I don't think praying is weird. I think praying is very _not _weird, in fact very _important._ I was doing a _lot_ of praying while we were caught in the storm, Skipper!"

"Then why…?" the Professor began, beginning to look rather tense, but Gilligan interrupted him.

"I just thought _you_ talking about praying was strange because you're a really scientific guy, and I always thought science guys didn't believe in God, but you said we should pray someone saw our signal, that's all."

Shaking his head, the teacher answered him kindly.

Of course I believe in God, Gilligan. Back home I am a member of the Presbyterian Church near me, and in college, I attended the Southern Methodist University in Dallas and Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. They both had excellent Physics departments, you see. There are times I attended the church on campus, as I didn't always have transportation to get to a Presbyterian Church."

"But, you…"

"Gilligan, science and Christianity are not opposing forces. People should understand that the Bible is not a scientific text book, and does not tell you anything about science… but on the other hand, science cannot tell you anything about God. Scientists just want to see how God does things. Curiosity is good. Besides, science proves God's existence, and it also clears up the truth about how long it took in _human_ time to do it."

Ginger frowned. "I don't quite get it."

"Look at it this way: the creation of a planet over millions of years is the same miracle as if God did it all in six days. These two schools of thought are two different explanations of the same miracle. It is just that one thousands of years ago was explained by a man of faith, while the other was explained by a man of science. Science is not here to disprove God."

"Do you know of any other scientists that believed in God, Professor?" Mary Ann asked, "I have to admit, I was with Gilligan on this one. I didn't think scientists could believe in God either."

The Professor nodded.

"I can think of several off the top of my head**: **Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Isaac Newton, and Gregor Mendel."

"Heavens," Mrs. Howell, who had been listening quietly, spoke up. "I had no idea!"

They all said nothing for a few minutes, and then finally the Skipper rose to his feet.

"Everyone…" he started slowly, "This conversation we have been having this morning brings up a very interesting question: Far be it from me to start imposing any rules, past the ones we will have to have here to survive, of course, but Gilligan's question, and the Professor's answer has brought up a whole new… I am not sure how to say it… subject.

Everyone looked at their neighbor, but it was Lovey Howell who spoke first.

"Shame on me for not broaching this topic before… I said the night we all told a little about ourselves that I felt it was my duty to help keep us all civilized, and certainly God has to be a part of that." She glanced at her husband for a moment. "You _will_ be joining me in this, Thurston." It was not a question. "Thurston is a member of the Vestry at our Episcopal church back home; the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and of course I serve on a number of committees there, myself."

"I'm Catholic," Gilligan spoke up, "I went to Mass every week back home, but I haven't been going as much since I was in the Navy, and working for the Skipper. But I still have my prayer book and my Rosary in my ditty box; I never go anywhere without them… and read the Liturgy. I just never thought about mentioning it to anyone here. I just… do it."

"I've attended the Winfield Grace Baptist Church since I was born," Mary Ann joined the conversation. "I've never gone anywhere else, and I always have my Bible with me."

"Well, I was raised in the Pentecostal Church," the Skipper said. "I haven't attended in many years though. As I grew up, and then out on my own, I realized it really wasn't where my heart was. But when I joined the US Navy, a prayer book and hymn book were standard issue, along with the Navy Manual. Now that is the order of service I follow." The others nodded and then Ginger spoke up.

"I'm Jewish," she said quietly. "My mother was Jewish and my father was Lutheran, but I consider myself Jewish." She chuckled, "The holidays around my house were interesting when my sister and I were kids… celebrating both holidays!"

"I bet!" Gilligan spoke, "That's a really interesting thing to know about you, Ginger! Do you…?"

Raising a hand, the Skipper stopped him. The question would have to be held for another time. The sun was rising higher in the incredibly blue sky, and they all still had much work to do.

"It looks like we have a wide variety of faiths here," he said, smiling. "I don't want to necessarily suggest anything as formal as insisting we have church service every Sunday, but at the same time, I think perhaps, if only to keep everything civilized as long as we are stranded here, perhaps we should all set a little time aside on Sunday, mornings…" He stopped speaking and glanced at the movie star, who nodded, "…barring emergencies, of course, for each of us to worship in our own way." He paused again, and the castaways looked at each other for a moment. "Of course, if we decide to pick a service, and come together as a group, that would be nice too."

"I think it's a fine idea!" the Professor spoke up.

"Well done, Skipper!" Mr. Howell added, and the others added their "yes" in turn.

"So I think we are finished here?" The Skipper asked, a bit uncertainly, this sort of discussion was definitely unfamiliar waters for him, after all.

"We are," the other castaways answered simultaneously.

"Then, fair seas!" the Skipper answered, and the breakfast concluded.


	4. Goodnight, Sweet Skipper

Mrs Howell gaped at the Professor, who was currently standing in their doorway clutching the radio, which was broadcasting some squawky woman in an airplane. She shook her head, adjusting the massive scarf encircling it.

"To what do we owe this late night visit?" she asked.

"Excuse me for the intrusion, Mrs. Howell, I was wondering if you might let me borrow one of your diamond bracelets."

"Oh, Professor, I don't think I have anything that will go with your outfit."

The scientist rolled his eyes as he walked into the hut without an invitation, and promptly put the radio down on the table.

"Not for me, Mrs. Howell," he replied, shaking his head.

"Oh, for Ginger, I expect," she said, peering at him over her lorgnette. "I see she's making her rounds. Better you than my husband."

"No, not for Ginger. I need it for –"

She threw her hands up in the air in triumph. "Mary Ann! I knew it. She's such a daaaahling little dear. Of course you may have one of my bracelets! I'll give you the thing, it's only worth a couple of thousand dollars."

The Professor was losing his patience. He crossed his arms in defiance.

"Mrs. Howell, will you PLEASE stop prattling on and let me have a word in edgewise? It's a matter of whether or not we get off this island. This bracelet is for the Skipper."

"The SKIPPER?" Mrs. Howell laughed. "You don't have to bribe him, dear, he hasn't got a clue as to how to get us back to civilization."

Mr. Howell entered the hut, sipping on a mai tai. "What's this about civilization? And just in time, I'm running low on my stash."

The Professor sat down at the table. "I am going to see if I can hypnotize the Skipper into thinking he's back in Guadalcanal. You see, I posit the theory that a hypnotic regression into his long-buried post-traumatic psyche will recreate the scene. But we don't have much time. Alice McNeil is an hour ahead of schedule!"

"EGADS, boy, stop talking such nonsense in front of my wife!"

"Mr. Howell, I merely stated that I believe with hypnosis, the Skipper may be able to recall how to create a transmitter from the radio. That lady flier should be near us any minute!"

Mrs Howell opened her jewelry box and a stack of thirty of forty diamond bracelets of various sizes twinkled in the candlelight from substantial hooks in the lid. "Would any of these work?"

The Professor held up a tennis bracelet. Mrs. Howell shook her head.

"Oh, no, I don't think so," said Mrs. Howell. "Too small. You'll want something quite sparkly. Now, how about this one?" She held up a much larger bauble.

"Yes, yes, that's fine," the Professor said. "Mrs. Howell, you get the girls, Mr. Howell, come with me."

-o0o-

Ten minutes later, the rest of the Castaways were reluctantly gathered together at the dining table, most of them yawning. The Skipper bumbled out of his hut, still a bit groggy from his tranquilizer overdose. He walked over to the picnic table and put his head on his arm, mumbling something about his ship.

"It's two in the morning, Professor!" Ginger whined, clutching her blanket around her. "What is going on?"

"And just when I was in the middle eating a gigantic cheeseburger with a double thick malted," Mary Ann added, rubbing her eyes.

"Cheeseburger?" Gilligan piped up, feeling his stomach growl. He sat next to Ginger and picked a banana out of the fruit bowl.

"The dream kind," Mary Ann sighed.

"Just think, Mary Ann," the Professor said, sitting next to her on the bench, "in a few days you might be eating one for real! We all will!" He gently patted her shoulder. She was not convinced and gave him an annoyed side glance, but Gilligan clapped at this news.

"Oh boy, oh boy!" he exclaimed. "With ketchup, and mayonnaise, and a gigantic side of French fries!"

"Oh, be quiet, Gilligan," Mary Ann grumbled, resting her head back on her arm.

"Speak for yourselves," Ginger said. "I want filet mignon!"

"Oh boy oh boy!" replied Gilligan. "Yeah! With some mashed potatoes and green beans! Plus a big bowl of chocolate ice cream!"

"I have to get up in four hours to start everyone's breakfasts," Mary Ann mumbled.

"Look," the Professor replied. "We have to get down to business."

"What business, Professor?" Mary Ann asked, as he reached over her head to pluck an orange from the fruit bowl. He methodically peeled it at the table, picking out the seeds.

"We have to hypnotize the Skipper," the Professor replied. "But we need to be absolutely sure he is in a neutral state of mind. He won't be properly hypnotized if he's distressed, or prompted to kill, or – "

"Merciful heavens!" thundered Mr. Howell, joining the rest, with a bottle of brandy in his hand. "What on earth do you have planned, Professor? Mayhem and bloody murder?"

"No more than actually happened at Guadalcanal," the Professor quipped. "But all we need to know is one specific bit of information, and that's how to fix this radio. That lady pilot could be here any minute."

"Grumblemumbbbbbrrr…" replied the Skipper.

"Once we have the Skipper successfully hypnotized, we will need to create ambience to enhance the experience. Mary Ann, you make gunning noises. Gilligan, you make sea and wind and bomb noises. Ginger, you make machine gun noises. Mrs. Howell, you make bang noises. Mr. Howell, you make…I don't know, charging noises."

"Oh goody!" Mrs. Howell said. "I just love play acting."

"Alright everyone, this is a drill. Make your assigned noises."

Ginger stood still for a minute as the others made their battle noises. The Professor looked at her quizzically. "Ginger, what did I tell you?"

"I'm trying to get into character," she insisted. "In my method acting classes we were told we had to get into the mindset of the character you're performing. So right now I'm pretending I'm a machine gun waiting to be shot off."

The Professor rolled his eyes as Ginger closed hers and dreamily repeated several times, "Rat, a tat, a tat."

"That doesn't sound like a machine gun," Gilligan said. "Machine guns are more like, eehehehehehhhhhh."

"I would be more in character, Gilligan, if I could position myself to be more like the shape of a machine gun. But if I tried that, I wouldn't have on any clothes."

This caught the Skipper and Mr. Howell's attentions, for sure.

"Alright, alright, you go off and practice your method acting," the Professor dismissed. "We have to get this organized."

He explained the plan for hypnosis, and laid out the following general script for them. When the Skipper would make roll call, each person would answer. When the Professor guided the hypnosis, each of them would do an assigned noise to correspond with the scenario.

"Got it?" he asked.

"Yes, we did something similar in the Hasty Pudding Club," Mr. Howell replied, chuckling. "A little Hahhhvahhd humor."

"This is very serious," scolded the Professor. "You may think you sound ridiculous, but this will be very helpful in creating the right atmosphere for the Skipper."

"WHUHHHH?" asked the Skipper, hearing his name. "Hypnotize me?"

The Professor nodded, rising from his seat and walking over to the burly sea captain. "I'm afraid that we're going to have to send you back to Guadalcanal."

The Skipper's eyes widened to the size of pizzas and he began to tremble uncontrollably in terror.

"You shouldn't have said it like that, Professor," said Gilligan. "He had a real bad time during the War. Spent half a year in the VA hospital recovering from shellshock. He still has spells sometimes. Once he thought I was a Japanese solder and tried hitting me in his sleep. I'm used to it."

The Professor profusely apologized for distressing the Skipper, who was currently going into full meltdown mode. "My god, Skipper, I'm sorry."

The Skipper looked ahead with a faraway gaze in his eyes, beginning a long, horrific monologue of some of the atrocities he experienced, as well as a string of disparaging comments about the soldiers executing said torture. He turned on them with a wild look in his eye, declaring that "if he could bring back Jenkins, he'd kill twenty more of those (blank-blank-blankety-blanks)."

Gilligan put his hands over his face. "Aw, gee, Professor, now you've done it. I haven't seen him this bad in a while."

"Heavens to Betsy! We have to calm him down!" exclaimed the Professor, as the rest gawked at the Skipper in horror. "I'm so sorry, Skipper, I had no idea." He continued to frantically try to snap the sailor out of his trance, to no avail.

"BLANKETY BLANK SOLDIERS BLANKETY BLANK PW CAMPS BLANKETY BLANK BLOOD EVERYWHERE JUNGLE BLANKETY BLANK THEY ALL DIED OF BLANKETY MALARIA!"

Mary Ann put her hands over her ears. "Oh Professor! Please! Stop him! This is horrible!" She began to cry in sympathy for the Skipper and his lost comrades and left the table in tears.

Ginger put her head in her hands as well. The Howells simply sat there in shock.

The Professor sat down next to the Skipper, trying desperately to calm him down, but words wouldn't help. The man began to openly weep, saying the nightmares had been haunting him for twenty years now. The Professor felt helpless and guilty, wondering if it was even worth it to put the Skipper through the ordeal once more.

Finally Mary Ann returned with half a mango pie. She wiped the corner of her eye and placed the treat in front of the Skipper.

"Skipper, I know it's not much, but please calm down, you're safe with us and we all love you." She kissed him tenderly on the cheek. "You don't have to do this," she said.

Suddenly the Skipper snapped out of his trance and looked around him. The rest of his friends were staring at him, worried to death. Mary Ann cut a piece of pie and handed it to him on a plate. The rest stared in shock as the Skipper took a bite, and behaved as if nothing had happened in the past five minutes.

"This is delicious, Mary Ann!" he said, in his regular, jovial voice. "Really, one of your best pies ever." The Skipper gave her a little side hug.

"Oh, thank god," the Professor exclaimed, hugging the farm girl himself.

"Thank you, dear," he whispered. She smiled and nodded shyly and sat back down.

"Glad I could help," she replied. "Skipper, you finish up that pie."

The others cleared their throats, got up, and surrounded the Skipper. Mr. Howell gave him a jaunty pat on the back. Mrs Howell patted his head. Ginger planted a massive kiss on his cheek.

"I should take tranquilizers more often," the Skipper beamed. "What's gotten into you guys?"

"We should probably explain," Mary Ann said. "Have some more pie."

After the Skipper had placated himself with the rest of the pie, he was in a much more neutral mood, and insisted that he would have to "suck it up like a man" and brave his flashbacks if they were to be saved.

"Skipper, we are all highly indebted to you for your sacrifice," the Professor said, patting him on the back. "Ready to go under the bracelet?"

The Skipper saluted him.


	5. Wrongway Feldman

Wrongway Feldman

_This first paragraph, and the two lines of dialogue, are transcribed from the original episode:_

"… _And New York is welcoming Wrongway Feldman with its greatest ticker-tape parade, in honor of the most remarkable 'round-the-world-flight in history… thirty-three-and-a-half years from the day he left the Bronx! Wrongway has told the authorities a strange story of a deserted island, with a group of castaways who helped him fix his plane… and the authorities have made every effort to investigate this possibility. Unfortunately, Wrongway's calculations are so confused the mysterious island could be located anywhere between the Bay of Napels and the Arctic Ocean. Considering Wrongway's past reputation, this is obviously another fantastic tale created from Wrongway's vivid imagination. In any event, Wrongway Feldman is one of aviation's great heroes, and he will long be remembered for the great heritage he leaves us..."_

The Skipper snapped off the radio.

"Our 'great hero' didn't leave _us_ much!" Jonas Grumby said, disgustedly.

"Oh, yes he did," Gilligan answered; "I got his wings!" he went on, flipping the brim to his sailor's cap up, proudly…

Late that evening:

Mary Ann Summers was just drifting off to sleep when she remembered that she had something she needed to do before starting breakfast the next day. Ginger was wrapped up in her usual orange blanket, sleeping soundly. No noises came from the Howell's or Professor's corners of the large hut they all shared, either. She could hear the Skipper's snores, and marveled that he never woke himself up. Pulling on a pair of short-shorts, and tying her nightshirt around her waist, she left the hut quietly, idly wondering when or if separate shelters would ever be erected for herself and Ginger, or the Professor… the Howell's hut was taking forever to be done… they insisted on two rooms and a front porch area!

"Hi, Mary Ann!"

The farm girl gasped, and held a hand to her chest.

"Gilligan! You nearly scared me to death! I thought you were asleep!"

"Tried to… couldn't," he mumbled.

"Why not?" she answered, confused, if there was one thing she had learned about Gilligan in the short time they had been stranded, was he could sleep anywhere, any time.

"Just couldn't," he answered, hanging his head a bit. "No big deal, Mary Ann."

The young woman reached out, lifted his chin with her hand, and her brown eyes gazed into his blue ones.

"That's not true, and you know it! Now, what's the problem? You never have trouble going to sleep!"

"I don't wanna talk about it."

Mary Ann sighed, dropped her hand, and shook her head. Cajoling the first mate was not going to work in this case.

"Then why don't you try going to sleep again?" she said, gesturing toward the hut entrance, "It's late, and you know the Skipper always has you up at the crack of dawn for chores."

"Can't. Besides, tomorrow is Saturday. I get to sleep in until eight. What are you doing up so late, anyway? I thought everyone else was asleep."

Mary Ann strolled over to the big bamboo table the Professor and Gilligan had built the week before, at Mrs. Howell's insistence.

"We can't just eat food in our laps indefinitely!" she had maintained, "Its _common!"_ So instead of starting on a hut first, they had built the table.

"The Professor and the Skipper brought in this big pile of branches, and driftwood," the young woman explained, "Which is great, but I'll need it in smaller pieces to start a fire for breakfast, and another one to heat up some water in that big pot you found on board the Minnow. To wash everyone's clothes… you know, like a washing machine would; if we had one. I need to break up the wood into kindling. Besides, some of it may be too green… I need to pull those pieces out so they can dry a little more."

"You shouldn't be doing that all by yourself!" Gilligan protested, "The Skipper and I can do it tomorrow."

"He worked hard just gathering it, and then he went to that pineapple patch we found and gathered pineapples, too." She shuddered. "I didn't know pineapple patches had spiders! He can have it!"

"They're just spiders, Mary Ann," Gilligan smiled at the girl's squeamishness. "They won't hurt you."

"Just the same… he can have the spiders. I'll take breaking up wood."

"Okay," Gilligan shrugged, _Girls!_ "I'll help you."

XXX

The two youngest castaways broke up branches for five minutes, but finally Mary Ann spoke:

"Now… do you want to tell me what is going on?"

"No… not really."

"Has the Skipper been bawling you out again?"

"No…"

"Mr. Howell? You know he is all bark, no bite."

The first mate grinned at the young woman and grabbed another large branch.

"Nope."

"Mrs. Howell? Ginger? The Professor?"

"No…"

"Have I said anything to bother you? To hurt you?"

"You? Don't make me laugh… You couldn't hurt anyone!"

"Thank you, but that still doesn't explain why you are out here at midnight."

"You are…"

"But I know why I am here. Now if you don't tell me, at least _try_ to tell me, I am going to go wake up the Skipper and the Professor and they will _make_ you tell them!" She started to stand, but the first mate grabbed her arm, and pulled her down to her seat again.

"Okay, I'll tell you, but you have to _promise_ not to tell anyone else. _Promise?"_ he asked earnestly.

Mary Ann nodded slowly, and firmly.

"I promise; Girl Scout's Honor."

The young man shrugged his shoulders, and started snapping away at the branch he still held.

"I think the Skipper is mad… no, disappointed in me."

"Disappointed? About what? You mean Wrongway?"

"Yeah, him."

Baffled, Mary Ann shook her head.

"I don't understand. You had nothing to do with Wrongway letting us down… I don't even blame Wrongway really. He just had a bad sense of direction, and a history of tall-tales he told a long time ago."

"No… not that."

"Then what?"

"I found the plane. If I hadn't, then we wouldn't have known he was here, and we wouldn't have been let down later."

"Gilligan, that's ridiculous. Any one of us could have found the plane, or Wrongway, or both, and the results would have been the same. The Professor, for instance; we've only been here a few weeks, and he's been all over the place, exploring and looking for ferns and things. He could have found the plane or Wrongway, too."

"I suppose…" Gilligan sighed, "… But there's the way I acted when we first met him."

"How so?" the girl, asked, picking up another branch. They really didn't need any more kindling at this point, but she didn't want to cut the line of communication she had established with the first mate.

"I should have been helping the Skipper and the Professor with the plane, instead I just sat there and talked to Wrongway… you know… catching him up on civilization and the planes that had been invented since _Spirit of the Bronx_, and inventions, and WW2, and talking to him about being a flying ace, and about his friend Bucky Lorenzo."

"Gilligan, that was perfectly natural. You wanted to know more about the past, and Wrongway wanted to know what has happened in the world since he was stuck on this island. We'll probably need…" she swallowed, "That is, we _might_ need to know and hear the same kind of things if we are stuck here any length of time… even if it is only a year! Wrongway had been here for thirty-three and a half years! That's a lot of catching up! I think the Skipper… and the Professor… understood you spending time with him. And it helped Wrongway relax too… he hasn't had anyone to talk to for a long, long, time. You helped him get comfortable with us. That's important."

"Maybe so, but I'm not sure the Skipper thought it was."

"What do you mean?"

"When we were checking the rear wheels on the plane. First he seemed a little hurt that I wanted to keep talking with Wrongway, and then that I messed up and made him drop the plane on his foot. Not the _whole_ plane, just where the rear wheel assembly was. He limped around for a half-hour, at least."

"Gilligan, that could have happened to anyone, too. Maybe you both should have waited working on that part until the Professor or Wrongway could help you. Even Ginger and I could have maybe helped if you had told us what to do."

The young man's face brightened for a minute, then dimmed again.

"There's still what happened later, though."

"What was that?"

Gilligan didn't speak for a minute, and Mary Ann was wondering if she had lost him.

"I lied to everyone… I lied to the Skipper about finding Wrongway… about him not being kidnapped, or whatever… about learning to fly his plane."

"He told you he didn't want you tell anyone about him faking his kidnapping, or whatever it was, didn't he?"

"Yeah…"

"And he told you that _you_ were the one who would rescue us, right?"

"Right…"

"So?"

"But I shouldn't have promised him. I should have at least told the Skipper… he's used to piloting ships… like the Minnow. He could have learned how to fly a plane better than me."

"Just because he is good at steering boats in the water, doesn't mean he would be good at the same thing in the air. Besides, didn't I hear you say that he is afraid of heights? He wouldn't be a very good pilot, I think!"

Gilligan smiled again.

"I guess you're right… but he could have taught the Professor… he's really smart. Smarter than anyone I have ever met."

"But he didn't choose the Professor… he picked you."

"But… but I couldn't do it! Maybe if the real cockpit looked like the pretend cockpit he set up, I could have, but I just couldn't do it! I couldn't!"

"Gilligan, you only had a day or two to practice flying. Real pilots take much longer to learn to fly. That crop duster in Kansas I mentioned? He told me that. It takes hours and hours of practice, and then you have to get certified, and get a license… there is no way you could have learned everything you needed to know in the time you had."

"Well, okay, but I should have been better… somehow."

"Gilligan, you have to stop looking over your shoulder and thinking about what you should have done. You did your best and that's what counts."

"My best never seems to be good enough."

Mary Ann rolled her eyes to the night sky. _How was she going to get through to this boy?_ Then a thought sparked in the back of her mind.

"Gilligan?"

"What?"

She put down the branch she had been working on, and looked at him earnestly.

"Gilligan… we know two days of practice wasn't enough time for you learn to fly a plane…"

"Yeah, but everyone would have…"

She put a finger to his lips, and he stopped talking. Then she let her hand drop to her lap.

"Hear me out, here. Two days wasn't enough time for you to learn to fly, but it was enough time for Wrongway to learn."

"What do you mean? Wrongway already knows how to fly!"

"But he didn't think he could do it… You told us so, remember? You said he had lost faith in himself; that he didn't think he could fly his plane after so long."

Mary Ann watched as the proverbial light bulb seemed to turn on over Gilligan's head.

"You mean…?"

"Exactly. Wrongway thought he was teaching you to fly, but in reality, he was… _re-teaching_ himself. And by teaching you, he realized you weren't ready and that he could do it after all. Gilligan, you are responsible for Wrongway teaching himself how to fly. I'm not sure anyone has ever done that for another person. You did something really special!"

Gilligan's smile radiated over his whole face.

"I did, didn't I?"

"You certainly did!"

"I guess I really did! Thanks, Mary Ann! You've made me feel a lot better about all this!"

"And you've helped me break up a lot of kindling. Think you can go to sleep now and stop your worrying?"

"Sure do! I'm gonna sleep good, that's for sure!" He started toward their communal hut, but stopped when Mary Ann didn't join him. "Aren't you coming?"

"I will in a minute. I want to sweep up these wood shards."

"I can wait…"

"No… really… go ahead."

"Okay, if you're sure."

"I'm sure." She smiled at him warmly.

"Okay. Good night… I mean when you go to bed. Sweet dreams."

"Sweet dreams, Gilligan."

XXX

Ten minutes later, Mary Ann sank onto her cot gratefully, trying hard not to disturb the Professor, ten feet away on the other side of the blanket wall, or Ginger, lying a few feet from her. Tomorrow would come quickly, but a short night's sleep was worth it, if her fellow castaway was feeling better.

Then, a baritone voice came from the other side of the 'wall' where the Professor was sleeping.

"Did you get Gilligan straightened out?" Roy Hinkley asked, in a whisper, "I was about to come out and see if I could help."

"I think so."

"Good… I knew if anyone could talk Gilligan into a good mood, you could. Good night, Mary Ann."

"Good night, Professor."


	6. President Gilligan

President Gilligan

His candidacy had been a success, but his presidential term turned out to be a complete failure. Gilligan walked down an unknown path, going as far as he could from the camp and the other castaways. Feeling helpless, the boy walked without looking back, wishing to get away.

His walk took him to a few banana trees, all with their ripe bunches. It was impossible to resist the sweet taste of a banana, even more because he skipped lunch to tend his occupations as president. He contemplated the yellow fruits for a few seconds, and with wonderful agility, he climbed the tree to pick four delicious bananas. He sat under the shade of a banana tree, and looked to the sky for a long time without eating. His usually merry eyes seemed melancholic, while white clouds were still moving. He took one of the bananas and peeled it, almost in a mechanical movement. He took a small bite: it was sweet, delicious. But even that sweetness wasn't enough to remove his bitterness.

The sweet scent attracted a small monkey. The animal jumped from tree to tree, making noise every time it landed on branches. This caught Gilligan's eye. He stopped eating and turned around to look at this little fella.

Realizing that the little guy was probably hungry, the first mate offered his banana, lifting it as high as he could to get the monkey to see. And it worked. The monkey came down from the tree, and fearing nothing, came closer to Gilligan.

"You're hungry, huh?" With the monkey in front of him, he smiled putting down the fruit "Go on, there's plenty for me and you."

Without hesitation, the little animal took the banana between its hands, and began to savor it. Watching this made the boy smile, and he thought it was very different to see an animal like this, in their natural habitat, than in a zoo.

"Can I call you Joey? I've always liked that name" The monkey was eating, not paying attention; Gilligan smiled wistfully "Seems like today everyone's up to ignore me, ha ha!"

His awkward laugh resonated, trying to hide his discomfort. And then, silence. The sound of the sea in the distance and the songs of birds and bugs was the only music on. It was a calm and lonely atmosphere.

"Hey, Joey, can I tell you something?" the monkey stopped eating and stared at him; to Gilligan this was a 'yes.' "It's so hard to be a president when no one hears you. I tried my best for everyone's sake, you see, and they seem not to care. Why?"

His new friend kept eating, mesmerized by the fruit. Gilligan smiled, feeling strangely relieved: nature had an odd way to heal.

"Do you think I need to try harder? Do you think I need to change so they can hear what I have to say? I like being me, even if I'm, a klutz, you know?" Joey stared at him, gripping the banana. "To tell you the truth, I voted for myself because I thought nobody else would do it. But then Mrs. Howell and Mary Ann voted for me, too... I don't fully understand why they did it..." With a somber expression, his hands caressed the soil and grass "Mrs. Howell was so kind... she was the only one who helped me, at least for a while. But, did they really think I could be a good leader? I wasn't really sure at first, but they seemed to believe in me..."

Joey kept staring, and Gilligan just had a vacant expression, thinking deeply about the disastrous events that surrounded this entire president thing. Getting closer to him, Joey offered his banana. This simple and kind act of sympathy caught him off guard, and moved him deeply. The eyes of the little monkey were fixated on his, like it was wishing for Gilligan to get over his sadness. Nodding to his new friend, Gilligan took the banana. If he had to say it, it seemed like Joey smiled at him.

"Thank you." Soon his grim expression turned into a sunny smile, and softly petted Joey's head "I needed to get this off my chest. Thank you for listening to me..."

Just as he tried to pet him once more, they heard some faint footsteps. Alerted by them, Joey fled, as fast as he could, disappearing between the trees, leaving Gilligan sitting by himself.  
"Gilligan, where are you?" the Skipper's voice resonated; Gilligan stood when he heard his friend calling out his name.

"Over here, Skipper!"

Cleaning the dirt off his pants, Gilligan ran to where he heard the voice. He stopped as soon as he saw him. When the Skipper turned around, he smiled broadly, seeing his best friend in front of him. Relieved, the man walked to him.

"Little Buddy! Are you all right?" He nodded "We were very worried, everyone's looking for you!"

Gilligan grinned for a second, but then his smiled was erased from his face, a little skeptical. Noticing this, the Skipper felt a heavy load on his shoulders.

"I'm sorry," the man murmured, "I was jealous."

"Jealous? For what?" The naivety of his question made it difficult for the Skipper, who shrugged.

"You won after all. I had to support you, but I didn't. I'm sorry." The sincerity of these words made Gilligan very happy, who returned the gesture by simply smiling.

"You don't have to be sorry, Skipper" He paused for a moment, and got a little serious "Truth is, I don't wanna be a president anymore."

Taken aback, the Skipper dropped his jaw.

"I don't want to be one if no one is happy. I prefer the other system, where we're really helping each other."

The Skipper nudged him playfully, and Gilligan looked shy.

"Let's go, I have to tell everyone I'm quitting."

Gilligan walked away first, smiling as he always used to. He was marvelous as that.

"You weren't a bad choice, Little Buddy" Jonas muttered to himself, feeling proud for Gilligan. And truth is, if they had to vote again, he'd vote for Gilligan.


	7. The Sound of Quacking

THE SOUND OF QUACKING

Every time he closed his eyes, a table appeared; a table laden with all sorts of delicious food… a bowl of colorful, steaming vegetables. A plate piled high with mashed potatoes, melted butter dripping from the top like an active volcano. A gravy boat, full to the brim, waiting to be poured over the glorious item taking pride of place on the table: a succulent roasted duck.

The Skipper opened his eyes and sighed. Why had Gilligan named the duck Emily? He thought back to his very first crush. A girl called Emily. He had been fourteen at the time, and she had been oblivious to him. He wondered where she was now. Not stuck on a tropical island, slowly starving to death, that was for sure.

Oh, why hadn't they just gone ahead and eaten the duck in the first place? He wasn't sure he could eat it now. His stomach growled as he rolled over in his hammock and tried desperately to think of something other than food.

XXX  
Laying on his cot in his corner of the communal hut, the Professor, too, was struggling to fall asleep. He was worried. Things were starting to look desperate for the little band of castaways.

He attempted to think things through logically. He needed to weigh their options and determine which one held the least risk of death. Eat the duck: keep their strength up for a little while longer and hope like mad that the blight on their food crops eased. Don't eat the duck: send it off with a message attached to its foot and pray that someone received it.

Either way, he decided, the situation was grim.

XXX  
"I wonder how many ducks I could buy with $1 million?" thought Thurston Howell the third, as he lay awake next to his wife. Meanwhile, on the other bed, his Lovey wondered how easy it would be to make a new stole out of duck feathers. The new season would be starting soon and her wardrobe did need updating…  
XXX

Mary Ann had once had a little lamb. Growing up on a farm, it was natural that she should've adopted one of the animals as her personal pet. What her childish mind had failed to realize was that farm pets are not always for life. Polly had gone "to live at the zoo" when Mary Ann was nine, and that night her family had enjoyed a lovely roast dinner.

A few years later, upon realizing the lie, Mary Ann had felt physically sick. She couldn't believe she had eaten her darling Polly. Could they do that to Emily? Would it be worth it? They were all so hungry. But no, she decided as she lay on her back staring into the darkness, she couldn't eat the duck. She had let herself become too attached.

XXX  
Hunger had always been Ginger's best friend. But now, how she wished she'd enjoyed hearty servings at the many dinner parties she'd attended. If only she'd known that one day she would be shipwrecked and forced to live on meager rations!

"How will I ever be compared to Marilyn if I have the figure of a boy?" she thought, a frown marring her otherwise beautiful face.

XXX  
Gilligan was miserable. He'd always been drawn to animals… they were so non-judgmental and they never bawled him out when he did something clumsy. He smiled as he remembered the pet dog he'd had as a boy. Buddy. He had loved that dog like a brother, and it had felt quite natural when the Skipper had started calling him "Little Buddy," too.

But as much as he loved his animal friends, he knew his human friends were depending on him. How could he let them go hungry when there was something he could do about it? Feeling torn, he tossed in his hammock once more. He hoped the answer would come to him in his sleep…


	8. Good-bye, Island

"Knock, knock," Mary Ann said, bringing the Professor a cup of pineapple juice in a coconut cup. "I thought you might be thirsty."

"How's construction going?" the Professor asked, offering her a seat. He took a sip of the juice. It was very nice.

The rest of the castaways were working on a stage out of the remains of the Minnow, which had laid in a giant heap for a few days on the shore of the south beach. After some deliberation, they had come to the grim realization that like Wrongway, it could take come time before they returned to civilization. After Ginger's meltdown, the Skipper suggested making a stage so she could keep practicing her acting and maybe teach the others something new. This seemed to brighten everyone's spirits a bit.

"My part is done," Mary Ann replied, with a little gesture of finality. "I made a curtain out of the remains of the raft sail. What are you working on this afternoon?"

"Another glue formula," he said. "I keep feeling guilty about the glue incident. It replays in my mind over and over. What did I do wrong? How could it have been improved?"

"Professor, no offense, but everything is experimental right now. Do you know how many pies I had to throw away because I didn't have the crust right? I just kept doing them over and over and writing down how I did it."

This cheered up his deflated ego a bit. She picked up the pot of paste and examined it.

"This looks thinner than the glue Gilligan and I made."

The Professor propped his chin on his palms and stared blankly ahead. His eyebrows furrowed.

"Nothing really seems to last. The longest I could get these two bamboo poles to stick together was two hours." He pointed at the offending poles. "Might be something about the humidity levels."

Mary Ann got up, walked over to the poles, and examined them. "You're sure you're using the sap from the trees Gilligan found?"

"Yeah. Actually, I meant to ask you about that. It seems the sap doesn't work without some kind of heat preparation, correct?" The young woman nodded.

"It's sticky for a short amount of time, but completely releases its grip later on. Boiling it seems to make it stick longer," she said, spinning the pole around in her hands.

"I don't suppose you timed the cooking with a watch, did you?" he sighed.

"No, Professor, but I can tell you it was in the cauldron for exactly two hours." He looked at her with a puzzled expression as she continued. "You see, they run commercials every fifteen minutes; that's how I tell time, if they don't say it on the radio." She continued explaining how she had put the sap in at 1:00 PM, it started boiling by the first commercial, and boiled continuously until the close of _Old Doctor Young._

"…I remember it clearly because in that episode, Nurse Preston saved the life of an injured horse jockey, and then after that, Young Doctor Young drove to catch a train..." She paused and realized she was getting carried away.

The Professor nodded, realizing that Mary Ann's timing methods might actually prove useful to this research.

"Alright, so that length of time yielded five hours of sticking. Maybe if we do something with the concentrate levels and boil it longer, it might be stickier. We can try it for two and a half hours first."

"We?" Mary Ann smiled.

"I mean…that is, if you have nothing better to do?" She smiled and shook her head no. "Fine! When we have the glue finished, we can test it on the stage. If it holds up there, we might have a better chance with a raft."

Mary Ann smiled broadly and walked over to pick up a bucket from the supply closet. "Come on, Professor, let's go get Gilligan. We'll show you where to tap the best trees."

xxXxx

By the time the Professor and Mary Ann finished up the next batch of glue, the others were finishing up the stage. Mr. Howell, with a drink in hand, was playing the part of the foreman, directing the others. Gilligan hoisted up the curtain on a long rod made from the old mast. The Skipper attached the rope to the back slit Mary Ann had made, and lo and behold, the thing actually slid quite well. Mrs. Howell was giving everyone glasses of juice and water, and Ginger entertained everyone with her sexy rendition of "Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush."

They had the framework of the stage nearly finished; all they would have to do next would be to put down the planks and secure them. They were hoping the Professor's new glue might do the trick.

"Here we are," said Mary Ann, coming down the path with a large bucket filled with hot glue. "The Professor suggested using it to grout in between the floorboards first. If it holds, we have a great chance with a raft!"

The others cheered. The Skipper took the bucket of glue and started brushing it between the cracks.

"Looks good so far," the Skipper called, giving a thumbs-up.

xxXxx

Ginger sauntered down to the lagoon with glass of guava juice down to the Professor, who was cleaning out the cauldron in a stream.

"A reward for your hard work," she purred, handing him the tray.

"Thanks, Ginger," he said. "Much appreciated." He gulped down the drink and continued scrubbing out the pot with a sponge, trying to ignore her presence. Something about Ginger made him nervous to the point his hands shook, so he was grateful for an activity that masked that trait.

Ginger was certainly beautiful to look at, but her raw aggression often took him aback. He never knew when she was going to appear, running those talons through his hair, asking him to do something for her.

The Professor's logical side said, "she is manipulative, sneaky, and there's only three single men to choose from." His illogical, animal side said, "enjoy that rare attention while it lasts, Roy." He had to admit at home he never got attention from any women, beautiful or otherwise. Ginger's attentions were fleetingly flattering and…well, harmlessly pleasant. Plus, she smelled nice. He sighed as he watched her skipping stones in that ridiculous evening gown. He felt an enormous amount of guilt wash over him, as if he were betraying – he swallowed, trying to suppress a well of memories bubbling up in the back of his mind.

Ginger, on the other hand, clapped and giggled.

"Seven skips!" she said, triumphantly, jumping up and down a little. "I still got it."

"There's a lot of physics involved in stone-skipping," he replied, not knowing what else to say. He closed his eyes, remembering a lovely pair of green eyes he hadn't seen in over a decade.

xxXxx

After dinner, the men cleaned up the dishes while Ginger cajoled Mary Ann into doing a scene with her.

"Now, you're my ugly stepmother who forces me to work when the handsome prince is looking for me," Ginger prompted. "Line!"

Mary Ann rolled her eyes and looked at the script. She read in a tired voice, "Oh me, oh my, where is my handsome prince?"

"Right." Ginger cleared her throat, getting into character. "Oh me, oh my, where is my handsome prince? WHERE IS MY HANDSOME PRINCE?"

Just then, Gilligan walked by the table carrying another bucket of glue. Ginger grabbed him and swept his forehead with her hand. "There you are…my love!"

"Hey, Ginger," he replied, nonchalantly, putting down the bucket just before Ginger pounced on him, caressing his cheeks.

"MY DARLING, MY ANGEL! YOU HAVE COME TO SAVE ME FROM MY WICKED AND UGLY STEPSISTER!"

"…Mother," Mary Ann prompted, with a sigh. "Step-MOTHER."

"STEPMOTHER!" Ginger finished, throwing her arm against her forehead and swooning.

The Professor came over. "Hey girls, you want to…oh, never mind."

Ginger dipped Gilligan, kissing him with exaggerated passion. He flailed his arms around until Ginger released him, and he tumbled to the ground. Gilligan scrambled up, grabbed the glue bucket, and tore off. The Professor's eyes widened at the spectacle. He whirled around and walked briskly back to the sink without explaining what it was he wanted to ask.

"So much for your handsome prince," Mary Ann laughed. Ginger shrugged.

"Oh, Gilligan's all wrong, Mary Ann. I have much more chemistry with that gorgeously handsome Professor," Ginger said, eyeing the gentleman currently stacking dishes on the makeshift sink, "but he's so CLUELESS! I'll eventually break him of his shyness act, the Ginger Grant way." She fluttered her eyelids.

Mary Ann stiffened a little. She didn't like when Ginger talked about the Professor like that. It made her uncomfortable, but she couldn't explain why.

"Well, I have a million things to do, Ginger," she said, putting down the script.

xxXxx

Gilligan ran back down to the stage and put the bucket of glue down on top of the small stepladder. The weight of the bucket made it buckle, but he didn't notice. He happily took off back to his hut to read his comic book.

xxXxx

Later that evening, they all gathered around the bonfire. The Howells entertained everyone with Gilbert and Sullivan selections. Mary Ann noticed the Professor gazing at Ginger while she followed up with her burlesque version of "Turkey In The Straw." The Skipper whistled and cheered after it was over. The Professor couldn't take his eyes off Ginger. None of the men could. Mrs. Howell certainly noticed, and elbowed her husband in the ribs. Ginger winked and blew a kiss at the Professor. "Goodnight, everyone," she said, making her exit.

Mary Ann tried to ignore this spectacle and turned to say something to Gilligan, but he was snoring against the log.

"Yes, it's getting late," the Skipper said, yawning. "I'm gonna turn in." Everyone else started yawning too and most of the others filed behind him back to their cabins. Gilligan was thrown over the Skipper's shoulder and hauled back, lightly snoring.

The Professor turned to Mary Ann, who was perched on the log across from him, watching the smouldering embers of the bonfire.

"I'm going to go check on the glue on the stage before bedtime," he said. "It's been nearly five hours. I'm curious to see how it's working! Care to join me?"

"Yeah, fine," she grumbled, dumping water over the ash. They walked down to the stage area through the clearing, and inspected the rear of the stage.

"Looks alright so far," the Professor said, running his finger over the cracks. "The glue has dried and hasn't split yet." Mary Ann repeated the action.

"So far so good!" Her arm bumped his, startling him a little at her sudden proximity.

At that moment, the stepladder in the back of the stage snapped under the weight of the glue bucket, sending the bucket and its contents splattering on the Professor and Mary Ann. In the confusion, the Professor grabbed her hand to keep her from falling. Their skin adhered immediately, causing their hands to be stuck together.

"Owww!" she cried, as they tried separating.

They tried stepping away from the stage platform, but they tripped and stumbled onto a puddle on the ground. They immediately adhered to it; the rubberized adhesive grabbed them when they attempted to stand.

"Of all the times to forget my pocket knife!" the Professor grumbled.

They shouted for help, but the stage was too far away for them to be heard by the others, and the tiki torches were slowly burning out.

"Well, looks like we're stuck," the Professor said.

"Don't make jokes! This isn't funny!" Mary Ann wailed, trying to wriggle foot out of the grip of the glue, to no avail.

"I know," he replied. "There's no way for us to get up until this glue dries."

"How long will that be? How are we going to explain…this?"

"If we're lucky and it's as bad as Gilligan's glue – five hours. If we're not lucky, I don't know. Either way, unless Mr. Howell goes sleepwalking again, it looks like we're here for the night."

They leaned against the stage, side by side, hand in hand.

After a few minutes of trying to yell for help once more, they gave up and decided to ride it out like adults.

"Well, this is a fine mess Gilligan's gotten us into," the Professor grumbled, raising his hand, taking Mary Ann's with him. "Look at us."

"I bet you wish you got stuck with Ginger, don't you?" Mary Ann teased.

The Professor bristled at this blunt suggestion. "What makes you say that?"

"Oh, I don't know," she replied airily. "I imagine any man would. Who wants to get stuck in glue with boring old Mary Ann Summers, when there's a famous celebrity here?"

"I don't know anyone who wants to get stuck in glue at all," the Professor said.

"I've seen the way you look at her," she continued softly. "She's…she's very beautiful."

"Yes, she's lovely," the Professor said, "but…oh never mind about Ginger."

xxXxx

An hour passed, and they had given up trying to free themselves from the glue. The Professor leaned against the stage riser and sighed. "Well, this is an interesting way to get to know your friends."

Mary Ann giggled. "One of these days it'll be a new teen fad back home."

He shuddered. "Those fads. Once we had to call the fire department because one of my students froze his tongue to a flagpole."

"My high school boyfriend made his little brother do that. I ended it right then and there."

"Wise choice."

"You're right. What about you? Did you have any girlfriends back home?" Mary Ann asked, as the last tiki torch started to die out. She felt her heart quicken a little as his hand flexed slightly in hers at the question.

"Yes," he replied slowly. "Well, she wasn't really my girlfriend. I wanted her to be, I mean, but she…" He shifted and adjusted his shirt collar with his free hand.

"Oh, Professor, I didn't mean to bring up a sore subject."

"No, it's alright. I don't mind."

For the first time in ten years, he actually didn't mind bringing her up. He poked at the ground with a small twig for a minute before continuing.

"…Her name was Louise Brown, the first woman Ph.D physics candidate at our university. She was brilliant. She certainly didn't look like a scientist. She had dark red hair and looked a little like Hedy Lamarr, although she never wore makeup. All the men were crazy over her, myself included. We worked together for three months. I was hoping she would be amenable to a romantic relationship."

"I'm sorry it didn't work out."

"I think it might have," he admitted. "There were moments. I was so proud of her accomplishments. But…" he faltered a second. "…She found out that someone in the department had stolen her research and was publishing it under his name. I was in Egypt when it happened."

"When what happened, Professor?"

He got quiet again for a moment. She squeezed his hand tightly, which gave him the courage to continue. "She jumped. It's haunted me every day, because you see…she thought I was the one who had stolen her research. She…it was in her note. " He swallowed. "I've never told anyone about that, Mary Ann." He wiped away a stray tear. "I have an idea of who did it, but I never confronted him. I left academia and took a job teaching high school science instead."

She laid her head on his shoulder. "I understand. My father hanged himself, Professor. Our hired boy found him in the barn. He owed money to someone."

"I'm truly saddened to hear that. It must have been hard on your family."

"Yes," she replied. "And every night before I go to bed, I worry about my mother. She's had it so hard, with my siblings dying, and then my father. And now she must think I'm gone, too. I feel a lot of guilt over taking that trip. That if I hadn't won the baking contest, I could have spared my mother the additional grief."

"My mother would have been sixty today, and I don't even know if she's alive," he admitted. "I hope she is, but as you know, these things happen at the blink of an eye."

She nodded and looked down, flashing back to age sixteen and hearing the inconsolable screams of her mother when Jerry came out of the barn, with that awful wild look in his eye. She winced at the memory and imagined her mother's reaction when the police must have come to the farm to tell her of her own disappearance. She tried to shut it out of her mind.

He cleared his throat. "On a lighter note, what do you want to do when we get off the island?" he asked.

"I've always wanted to travel to London and Paris," she said. "How about you?"

"Publish my fern book."

"Can I read it sometime?"

"Sure. I admit it's a bit dry."

The light from the last tiki finally died. The night sounds of the ocean and the jungle surrounded them as they were enveloped in darkness, except for the moon above. Their eyes adjusted a little.

"It's dark," she whispered.

"I know. Are you scared?"

"A little."

"Me too," he replied truthfully. "But I think we'll be alright. We're close enough to camp. I don't think there's any wild animals here to worry about. But we should probably try and get some sleep. We'll have some explaining to do tomorrow morning if this glue doesn't lose its stick."

She reached up and grabbed some leftover cloth from the curtain that was bunched in a pile on the stage. "We can use this as a pillow."

They settled down along the stage, mindful of each other's space, but keenly aware that it was less awkward than they initially thought. Mary Ann felt him shift against her arm, trying to get comfortable on the hard ground. She wished they had gotten glued to the sand instead, then realized that was a dumb wish.

"Professor?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you found it hard to keep faith, after all this? I used to go to church every week and thought it was the right thing, but there's been a lot of unanswered prayers, and when I think about it, it's harder and harder for me to believe in…what I was raised with."

"It's a constant," he replied. "But those questions are perfectly normal. I asked them when Louise died, and when my own father died and I saw how much my mother suffered. The longer we stay here, and the less hope I have of us returning, the more I wonder what it's all for."

She closed her eyes. "I was always taught that it was wrong to question, but I still do."

"No, dear. I think it's healthy. There's one thing for certain that keeps me, though."

"What's that?"

"Look above you," he said quietly.

They gazed up at the stars. It was a clear night, and they sparkled like diamonds on black velvet.

"I see what you mean," she said. "There's so much out there we don't know about yet. I like that thought."

"Now you see why I love astronomy so much," he replied. "We are all comprised of star matter. That's a beautiful thing, Mary Ann. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

"Yeah. Somehow I feel closer to my dad when I look at the stars. Maybe…I hope that he and Louise are there, somewhere."

"Yes, dear," he replied. "We should tell them goodnight."


	9. The Big Gold Strike

**The Big Gold Strike**

_**The lines in italics are transcribed from the original episode:**_

"_Well, I guess we have all learned a bitter lesson," the Professor said, rolling his still slightly damp shirt sleeve back up to its usual position._

"_You are so right, Professor," the Skipper agreed. "We lost all of our gold and we've ruined our life raft… all because we were so greedy."_

"_I'll never be greedy again," Ginger said emphatically._

"_Neither will I." Mary Ann added, rubbing her hands together for warmth._

"_Nor will I," Mrs. Howell said, "Thurston?" she added, swatting her husband's arm._

"_You people are always taking the fun out of life," the multi-millionaire answered reproachfully._

_Gillian pried open an oyster he had been cooking over the fire, bit into the meat, and quickly spat something out._

"_Look what I found in this oyster!" he exclaimed._

"_It's a pearl!" Ginger said, excited._

_Quickly, Thurston Howell pulled a jewelers loop from his pocket and grabbed the pearl from the first mate._

"_Why, it's a perfect pearl! Ah.. ah… abt… Where'd did you find that oyster?"_

"_Over in the cove," Gilligan answered. "There's hundreds of them!"_

"_Hundreds of them!" Jonas Grumby exclaimed, rising to his feet, and started to make a dash for the cove, the other five castaways following him. Thurston Howell stopping only long enough to reluctantly return Gilligan's pearl._

"Or maybe thousands of 'em!" Gilligan shrugged and turned back toward the fire, and continued speaking, only to himself. "Or maybe only one… two… three… four of 'em!" He rubbed the pearls in his hands, and giggled…

XXX

Gilligan looked over his shoulder again, and shook his head, glancing at the pearls in his hand.

_I guess I am being greedy now, too,_ he thought, and began to talk to himself. "I should be sharing these with the others… I don't know if there are any more pearls out there… I remember from science class that pearls don't come in every oyster… it's just a random kind of thing… I think Mister Kilker said it just has to do with whether a teeny grain of sand happens to wash into the pearl and irritate the pearl into putting a coating around it… that the pearl thinks of the grain of sand like we do when we get a dust speck in our eye and it stings. I guess the smart thing to do would be to throw these pearls back in the ocean so nobody will fight over them. On the other hand, a oyster did lose its life to give me food, just tossing the pearl away… it would be a waste of an oyster life… except it _did_ feed me… this is very confusing. I know! Maybe I can make some earrings for Ginger and Mary Ann for Christmas… that way they wouldn't be wasted, and the girls will like them. I'll find something else for Mrs. Howell. She already has a pearl necklace…" Suddenly, there was a rustle of branches, and a figure came out of the gathering darkness. "Skipper?" Gilligan said warily, putting the pearls back in his pocket.

"No… it's me, Ginger."

"Ginger?" Gilligan exclaimed, "What are you doing back here? Aren't you gonna go look for pearls?"

"I got about halfway to the cove and decided I didn't want to go wading around in the cold water, and take a chance wrecking my shoes, or getting another dress wet tonight." Quietly, she sat down on a rock near the fire and rubbed her hands over it. "Besides, I decided I have been greedy enough for this week. We really did mess things up good, Gilligan… and this time… well, you were right. You were the only one not to be selfish and take your gold with you."

Gilligan shook his head and felt the pearls burning a hole in his pocket.

"You're giving me too much credit, Ginger. I just didn't _have_ any gold. Mary Ann's pie smelled so good… I had to have some. And you know, well, I was greedy, too… I couldn't stop at one piece. I ate the whole pie and had to pay her the last of my gold for it. And I had to pay both of you for the dinner I ate the day before…"

Ginger cocked her head and stared at the young sailor.

"So… are you saying if you did have some gold, you would have tried to get it on board the life raft?"

"Maybe… probably…" Gilligan nodded. "Not so much for me, but to take back home… to my family… and also give some to the Skipper to help him buy a new boat… I mean as long as he was going to make me his first mate again."

"You mean you would really want to be? He does swat you with his cap a lot."

"It's a friendly swat… most of the time. I've been around people who were a lot meaner."

"Really? Like who? Not your parents!"

"No, not my parents, but I don't want to talk about it." The first mate changed the subject quickly. "What about you? What were you going to do with your share?"

"Well, I'm not as unselfish as you, Gilligan…" The movie star's face drooped, and she looked ashamed of herself. "I'm afraid I would have spent most of it on… well… me. It occurred to me that we would get back to civilization, and I would be without a cent. No place to live, that's for sure; my roommate, Debbie would have probably gotten another apartment, either by herself or with someone else, my other things, like my jewelry and my one rabbit-fur stole, and my gowns would either gone to Debbie, or my sister, or my mother and everything that nobody wanted would have ended up with Goodwill or the Salvation Army."

"Maybe someone at your movie studio would want your stuff… you know. As souvenirs? I mean you are a famous actress."

"I'm a recognized actress, Gilligan, not famous… no Academy Awards… I mean, yeah, people know who I am, but I'm not as big as Julie Andrews, or Ann Bancroft, or Patricia Neal, or Shirley Maclaine, or Audrey Hepburn, or…"

"I can't imagine any of them on this island," Gilligan cut in on her, shaking his head. "You're you. That's special. I tell myself that when I am having a bad day."

"Just the same, I hate thinking it was the weight of my gold and wrecked the raft," Ginger sighed, and her shoulders sunk.

"I wouldn't blame yourself for that," a baritone voice said, another figure, followed by a smaller one appeared in the light of the fire.

"Professor!" Gilligan exclaimed.

"I wouldn't either!" Mary Ann said, also sitting down near the campfire.

"So you two came back, too…" Ginger said, "How come?"

Mary Ann sighed.

"I started thinking about what I was about to do." she said. "If we pulled every oyster out of that bed and opened them all, it would be a terrible waste. All their meat would be exposed, and spoil, because we have no way to refrigerate it. We would have totally destroyed that particular food supply. Truth to tell, I am already a little worried about whether there is going to be enough food and water to support all seven of us on this island for an indefinite period of time. I studied a little biology in school, but I can't remember what the life cycle of an oyster or a clam is. I just remember reading something about it in a Sherlock Holmes story once. Holmes was acting sick and delirious to catch a criminal, and he said something about them being very prolific. I can't remember the name of the story though…"

"_The Adventure of the Dying Detective,"_ Roy Hinkley smiled, "One of my favorite tales of the sixty in the canon."

"Thanks, Professor," Mary Ann smiled at him. "Anyway, that's why I came back. I got to thinking, if we really want those pearls, which could be transported back to the mainland way easier than gold, the trick would be to just make a bank, like out of a dried gourd, or something, and leave it in the cooking area. Every time we find a pearl, if we do, we drop it in the gourd. Then if… I mean _when_ the day comes we _do_ get rescued; we can take the gourd with us, break it open like a piggybank, and divide the pearls between the seven of us."

"Super idea," Ginger smiled.

"Super idea that didn't help us with our gold fever," Mary Ann retorted softly, "And it could just as easily been _my_ box that sunk us, Ginger. You shouldn't take all the blame. We were all greedy. All of us but Gilligan."

"I told Ginger, I'll tell you guys, too. I didn't have any gold to take. I don't think I would have been strong enough to leave behind the gold either!" Gilligan protested.

"We _were_ greedy…" Roy Hinkley nodded, "That's why I came back to the fire, too. Though… Gilligan… Mary Ann… Ginger… I have been running some more calculations through my head since we sank… I think perhaps my numbers could have been off, and we could have lost our raft anyway."

"What do you mean, Professor?" Ginger asked; her green eyes wide.

"Merely that I did all my calculations for survival, based on the combined weight of all of us, and the food and water we carried with us in the raft. But I really didn't do as many figures on the tides, and currents and what other things might have affected us. That's a pretty big ocean out there, and we could have floated for weeks with no one seeing us. Even with a compass, there is no guarantee we would be headed in the right direction. We could have suffered from exposure, heat, be becalmed and just floated for days, run out of provisions, or been swamped by another heavy rainstorm…"

"Like in that Hitchcock movie, _Lifeboat,"_ Ginger put in, "After their ship was torpedoed, they were at sea for a long time… and they had a wood boat, not a rubber raft."

"We could be attacked by sharks, too…" Gilligan added, "…Like what happened to the Skipper and me the first time. The only reason we survived is because bamboo was too filling… but then the storm got us…"

"Yes, and the tides pushed you right back to the island just before your raft fell apart," Mary Ann added. "It might have taken the sharks more time to fill up on rubber!" She shivered again.

"I certainly don't want my last role to be fish food!" Ginger exclaimed, and they all laughed.

"And my package… the one I lied and said was plant specimens… that one could have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back as well," the Professor added. "All things considered, though, I think us being greedy could have very well saved us. Maybe my saying this comes off like that old Aesop's Fable, _The Fox and the Grapes_, but, well, now I am of the opinion that being greedy really saved our lives."

"That's nice to know, I guess. What were you going to do with your gold, Professor?" Mary Ann asked the scientist timidly, "I was going to give mine to my mom and my aunt and uncle… well, most of it… I thought that if they had enough money, and paid off the farm, that I might want to use the rest and go to school. Have something to fall back on besides farming... business school, or accounting, maybe."

"The same as everyone else here, I imagine," the Professor answered. "Secure a new place to live… and have enough money so I could take my time pursuing new employment. Even with tenure, I can't imagine Sherwood High School keeping my position open for very long. They do assume we are dead, after all; a gloomy thing to think about, but it's true, even if our nearest and dearest can't declare us _legally_ dead for seven years… sometimes longer, depending… like in the Howell's case, for instance. They have a multi-multi-million dollar estate to consider."

"I hadn't thought of that…" Gilligan said, opening another oyster. He reached in to the meat and pulled out another small pearl. "Here's the first pearl for your bank, Mary Ann!" He handed it to her.

"Thanks, Gilligan!" she smiled and polished the little pearl a bit more on the hem of her dress. "Better late, than never, I guess!" Her face brightened a bit. "Banks… I was just thinking… you know what we should have done?"

"I'll tell you what we should have done…" The Skipper came into the firelight and sat down, rolling down the front of his shirt to reveal seven oysters he was carrying there, still in their shells. "Yeah, I decided murdering an oyster bed wasn't a good idea either." He stopped speaking for a moment, and put the oysters in the coals to steam. "What we should have done is put our pride in our pocket, and talked to the Howells."

"But we _did_ talk to the Howells!" Ginger said, perplexed, "They wouldn't share their gold with us… that's why we all resorted to charging them for mining equipment, and candles, and food…"

"That was doing good business," the Skipper maintained, "Free enterprise. I hardly think the Howells resent us for that. But look. This is so simple; what we should have done, like right before we were going to cast off? We should have treated Mr. Howell like a… a holding account."

"I have to admit, I cannot comprehend what you are driving at," the Professor cut in, "The Howells?"

"Yes, the Howells," the Skipper maintained, "Look… we each had about $10,000 worth of gold, right? I mean all of us except Gilligan?"

"Right…" Ginger said, nodding her head.

"And when Mr. Howell showed us that big suitcase of his, full of money, he said it had about $750,000 in it, right?"

"Affirmative," replied the Professor, "He called it his 'petty cash' fund."

"Right," Mary Ann agreed. "And that was just his money… Mrs. Howell had another suitcase full of cash and she has all those jewels and fur coats, too."

"I never have figured out why he thought he needed to take that kind of money on a three-hour tour," Gilligan said. I mean… where would he spend it, out on the open sea?"

"Dunno, but he did," the Captain answered back. "My point is this. What we should have done, is offer to sell our gold back to Mr. Howell for cash, which would weigh practically nothing. We could take it with us. He would charge us each an exchange fee, like maybe a thousand dollars. Then we would have our money, and Mr. Howell would get all the gold for himself."

"But, he would still want to take all the gold home with him on the raft," Ginger objected.

"Yeah, and we would be back where we started. A ruined raft, and all the gold at the bottom of the lagoon," Gilligan continued.

"No, we wouldn't… don't you see?"

"No…" they all said together.

"They don't, but I think Lovey and I do!" the Howells entered and made themselves comfortable. "Gilligan, Lovey and I only found a few oysters, and I don't know how to open them to get to the pearls. How do you do it?"

"I'll show you sometime," Gilligan answered, "For a fee!"

"Spoken like a true Capitalist-Republican," the millionaire shot back. "Gilligan, my boy, you are learning! Now, as I was saying… Captain, if I am reading you correctly, you are saying I would buy back all your gold, for a commission. Now, let me guess… Lovey… this could be fun!"

"What could be fun, Thurston, darling?"

"We would get to play pirates!"

"What?"

"Pirates… always wanted to try that. Dad would never let me. He always says money belongs in a safe, or in the bank."

"I'm still confused," Ginger said.

"Simple," the millionaire nodded. "Obviously, all of our belongings, especially not the gold, would have fit in the life raft. So what we would do, is take all the gold, put it in a container of some kind; the Skipper and Gilligan would dig a big hole, somewhere deep in the jungle, or on the other side of the island…"

"If you want to dig a deep hole somewhere secret, you will have to do your own digging," The Professor grinned.

"Nonsense. I don't know how to work a shovel and neither does Lovey."

The point is, we would take the gold, bury it, or hide it really well… like in a cave, even…"

"And make a map, like pirates did, and come back later on our yacht, after we have filed for ownership of this island, and dig it up! Brilliant, Thurston!" Mrs. Howell continued.

"Well, of course I am, Lovey!"

"I hope you are speaking of the editorial 'we'…" The Skipper glowered a bit. "All seven of us landed here. The island belongs to all of us."

"Got that right," Mary Ann said.

"Every company needs a president…" Mr. Howell huffed.

"Oh, no! I am not going through another election or term!" Gilligan shouted, "No presidents! We need to drop this right now!"

"The point is, that's what we _should_ have done," Roy Hinkley sighed. "Now the gold is buried at the bottom of the lagoon, and I fear even if we wanted to try, it would be difficult to remove. As we have learned, the _hard_ way, gold is very heavy."

"And I think we all have enough to do, just eking out a living here," Mary Ann added. "I know I am behind on all my normal chores, what with mining for gold, and thinking we were going to be rescued, and all."

"I'll third that," Ginger said. "My gold fever has broken, and I just want to concentrate on surviving, and finding another way to get us rescued."

"And I'll second _that,_ Ginger, Honey!" The sailor grinned, and turned to the movie star, engulfing her in a brotherly bear hug.

"Skipper, how about another oyster?" Gilligan asked, cracking open a shell, but finding no pearl inside.

"Make it two," the Captain answered, "Looks like our failed rescue has turned into an old-fashioned cookout! Gilligan, what-say I build up the fire and you go get us some coconuts, pineapples and bananas from the food lockers? Time to party!"

And so they did, late into the night, with good food, songs around the campfire, storytelling, and fun, with Mr. and Mrs. Howell even providing two bottles of wine from their wine locker-suitcase.

And when the evening was over, they all agreed, the evening's celebration had been their best 'non-rescue' party to date.


	10. Waiting For Watubi

WAITING FOR WATUBI

_December 7, 1964_

_Dear Mom, Uncle George and Aunt Martha,_

_Well, here I go writing another letter to you, when I have no idea if you have received the two letters I have sent you already… I suppose you haven't, since nobody has rescued us yet! I have to wonder what is happening to the bottles, though. Are they not making it to Hawaii, or, if they have been found? Do the finders think my letters are a joke of some kind and throw them away?_

_I guess it doesn't really matter. We are still marooned here on this God-forsaken island; all seven of us. Okay, maybe things could be worse, but I miss you so much, sometimes I just think it is worse than it really is._

_We are staying busy though. As I mentioned in my last letter to you, (not that you received it) we have built a big hut for us all to sleep in, and now we are starting to build separate ones. The Skipper and Gilligan will share a hut… They are used to doing that, because they shared space when they ran the tours together on board the Minnow. Mr. and Mrs. Howell of course get a hut to themselves; (They get two rooms and a closet!) The Professor will have one to himself, (He has a lot of interesting experiments he is working on and needs more space) and I will be sharing a hut with Ginger Grant, the movie star I told you about in my last letter that was on the boat, too. _

_I'm a little nervous about this. I'm from Kansas, she is from Hollywood! She doesn't seem bothered about me, though; she said that she had a room-mate there, too. I guess Hollywood apartments are really expensive. I never thought about a movie star having to share a house with someone, unless they're married, of course._

_The hut building is going slowly. The Skipper and the Professor want to build them really strong, so they will last, but it is hard without having lots of tools to work with, not to mention all the things we could always find at the hardware store. Nails, for instance! If we had nails, we could have fixed the boat, and sailed away from here, and we wouldn't need to build huts. But like you always say, Aunt Martha, "wishing, ain't gettin'." and we are all learning to make do; but THINGS keep happening!_

_Like last week, for instance. Ginger and I were fishing and hooked the rubber raft that had been on board the Minnow, but was washed overboard in the storm. The same time we were finding the raft, Gilligan… I told you about him, right? Gilligan found a gold mine, and all work on the huts AND fixing the raft just stopped. Then, when we all tried to take to gold back to Hawaii with us on the raft, we sank it. Oh, boy… did I feel dumb! The only thing that made me not feel so bad was everyone else, except Gilligan, had tried to take their gold, too._

_Something else interesting happened a few days ago… like I said, there is always something going on around here. The Professor, The Skipper and Gilligan were digging a storage pit to hold food, and keep it cool so it wouldn't spoil… it gets so hot here, you know… and it's a different kind of heat than Kansas. I guess you could call the pit they were digging an island-version of a root-cellar. Anyway, the Skipper dug up this funny-looking idol that he called 'Kona,' and he said the statue would bring him nothing but bad luck. (Ginger and I hadn't seen the idol yet, we heard about it later.)_

_Anyway, all sorts of bad things did start happening to the Skipper! He fell into quicksand; he tripped over Gilligan… He banged his head… the Skipper was certain he was cursed by this little statue. Gilligan and the Skipper tried to bury it, but it showed up again… then Gilligan tried to bury it himself, but he lost it, and then Ginger and I found it, and that's when we found out what had been going on… that he hated the darn thing, and that it was cursed, and dumb us, we gave it to the Skipper as a birthday present! Gee, we didn't know that at the time! We should have thrown it into the sea… it just looked like a statue to us!_

_Anyway, like you always say, Mom, sometimes you're worst fears are the ones you make for yourself, and the Professor said that the Skipper was actually going to worry himself to death, and we had to do something. The Skipper said that only Watubi the witch doctor could break his curse, so Gilligan dressed up like Watubi (Ginger and I helped with that… I did his costume and Ginger did his make-up) and then we dressed up like native girls, and became Gilligan's Greek chorus, and we all ad-libbed a magic verse or two, and Gilligan managed to conjure up a small earthquake, or something. We still don't know how that happened; the Professor said it was "just a coincidence." Anyway, we broke the 'curse' or whatever it was. _

_I think the Skipper is finally feeling better, but I have to wonder what he would do or say if he ever figured out it was Ginger, Gilligan and me, and not Watubi and his assistants. I guess I won't worry about it… he's better, that's the important thing._

_That's about it… I think I am now the official 'chief cook and bottle washer' of this island. Ginger isn't a real good cook, and I am, so I guess that's what I'll officially do around here to make myself useful. Maybe I can teach her a few basics. Guess with the glamorous life she had in Hollywood, she went out to eat a lot… like on dates every night. I bet that was nice… and maybe her roommate was a good cook, too. I don't know… she doesn't talk about her much._

_The Howells don't really help with chores often, but I guess that's not their fault exactly. They were born and lived all their lives with others doing things for them. Mrs. Howell even mentioned that Mr. Howell isn't a good swimmer because his butler took the lessons for him. They're kind of helpless with things that really are useful, and yet they seem to know about social things, and what is important to them, and they say to us, too. The Skipper says he wants to MAKE Mr. Howell do more work, but he hasn't said how he is going to do it!_

_The Skipper and Gilligan do a lot of the food gathering, and fishing, and they really have a lot of things to work on, when you count building huts, and setting lobster traps, and making furniture, and that kind of stuff, but they really aren't that good at the day-to-day housekeeping things that take up so much time, like sewing and washing clothes. Laundry! What I wouldn't give for even that old wringer-washer of grandma's that we used to keep out on the summer-porch! It would be a God-send here! We wash our clothes by taking them down to the lagoon and pounding them against a rock! _

_Mom, are you taking care of Pandora? Does she miss me? I really hope you have kept her inside, and not sent her to the barn to live. She'll never forgive me. I miss her… I miss all of you so much, that every now and then I have to run away to the far side of the island and cry and scream a little, and pray, and get myself together. The Professor and the Skipper say we all need to do that sometimes, or we could all go crazy here. I guess that's why dressing up like native girls and witch-doctors to cure a curse that isn't a curse is okay… and almost fun. It breaks the routine._

_Well, I wrote as small as I could, but I am out of room... I hope you get this letter and find me; and my friends too… I miss you all so much! I LOVE YOU!_

XXX

Drawing a breath, Mary Ann signed the letter, stuffed it in a bottle, and then plugged the opening with a cork made of coconut meat. Then she exited the common hut and made her way to the lagoon.

"Another letter to your boyfriend?" Gilligan looked up from where he was mending a lobster trap.

"Uh-huh." Mary Ann turned slightly pink under her tan, and kept her fingers crossed that the first mate wouldn't figure out that she was fibbing about having a boyfriend back home.

"He sure is a lucky guy, getting your letters," Gilligan responded, "Don't worry, Mary Ann... your bottle... I mean, your letter will go out on the 3:00 tide."

"Thanks, Gilligan."

The young woman turned and started back to the common area. There was still a dinner to start preparing.


	11. Angel on the Island

_**1957, Dr. Jacoby's office, 443 Park Avenue, NYC**_

_The psychiatrist rocked back in his chair, and studied the petite woman lying on the sofa with the critical eye of an owl. Her tear-streaked face annoyed him. Another typical case of middle aged hysteria. He steepled his fingers under his chin for a moment before speaking._

"_Well, Mrs. Howell…quite often, after a decade or so of marriage, things can change between a husband and wife. She gets older. You have no children to look after, so your focus has shifted to your charity affairs. This sort of thing can break the right man. The wife is the chief factor in the husband's success in his career, after all."_

"_But that doesn't explain why I found a dancing girl kissing him in his office. I'm not imagining things, Doctor. This isn't the first time. I walked in there and found her on his lap, calling him Boopsie! I mean, really, the nerve!"_

_The doctor lit his pipe and thoughtfully puffed it a few times._

"_Perhaps you're not trying hard enough, Mrs. Howell. Your duty as wife is to put aside personal interests and be a rock for your husband's pursuits. I have consistently found that when a husband leaves his home and seeks out the company of other women, he may be seeking refuge from an unpleasant environment. Perhaps he's not understood or appreciated in his own home." _

_The upset wife dabbed her eye with a linen hanky, as the psychiatrist rose slowly and walked to his desk. He took out a tablet, scribbled on it, and handed it to her._

"_This is a prescription for some mild tranquilizers. Perhaps they'll put you in a more amiable mood. But remember, these situations are usually a two-sided thing, and you may actually be the root cause of his infidelities. Our time is up, Mrs. Howell."_

_Three hours later, Mr. Howell returned home from rehearsals for _Kick The Can_, his latest musical farce, to find Mrs. Howell sobbing in the bedroom._

"_Lovey, dear! What's wrong?"_

"_Nothing, Thurston," the woman said, wiping her eyes. _

"_Is this still about Kiki the other night? She means nothing to me, darling, nothing!"_

"_I know, Thurston," she said, unconvincingly. "I had a bad session with Doctor Jacoby this morning."_

"_My dear, I'm telling you, psychotherapy cures everything these days. Mind over….matter. If you want a baby, you just have to 'think baby!"_

"_Thurston, darling, stay home tomorrow night." She wound her fingers around his tie._

"_Dear, it's dress rehearsal tomorrow!"_

"_So you'd rather spend an evening with a gaggle of twenty year old women than your own wife?"_

"_Well…yes!" he said truthfully. "Oh, come now, Lovey, I didn't mean it like that."_

"_Yes, you did!" she sniffled._

"Mr. Howell! Oh Mr. Howell! Gilligan told me you were going to produce my play," Ginger gushed, rushing into the Howell area of the communal hut. "You've made me the happiest girl in the world!" She kissed him squarely on the cheek, causing Mrs. Howell to recoil in anger.

"Come, my dear, let's not lose our heads," the millionaire replied, glancing at his livid wife. He remembered the disastrous premiere of _Kick the Can_ and still blamed it on guilt over his failure to make his wife happy that long-ago night. It was their last chance before she had to have the emergency hysterectomy, and…their last chance at producing a Thurston Howell IV.

And now she was sitting there, placidly typing.

"M-A-R-C."

-vVv- 

_**1962, the living room of George Ingersoll**_

_"Well, well, well, if it isn't Miss Ginger Grant," the affable, middle-aged playwright said, welcoming the redheaded starlet in his home. The room was decorated in wall-to-wall Danish modern, with a starburst clock above the hi-fi. The movie star flashed a fond smile at him – a genuine one this time, not the one that she flashed people like her agent, Lester, or the doorman to her apartment building. George Ingersoll was one of her favorite people._

_"Do have a seat, my dear. And help yourself to a bon-bon." He smoothed out his hair and closed the door. "They're coconut!"_

_"Gotta watch my figure," she said, placing her rabbit stole on the arm of his easy chair as the gentleman sat on the davenport. "Oh, what the heck. Coconut always was my favorite!"_

_"I'm sure you are wondering why I've asked you here, my dear," the man leered playfully, adjusting his ascot, patting the area of the sofa next to him. She demurely planted herself beside him and grinned._

_"Whatever could you mean, Georgey-poo?" She walked her fingers up his arm and booped him on the cheek._

_The man leaned in. "Ginger, I'm writing a new play. I saw your performance in "Moonlight Stories" and was simply blown away by your genius. What raw emotions! What grace! What charm! You MUST be my Cleopatra!"_

_Ginger rocked back and clasped her hands together. "Do you really mean that, Georgey-poo? Oh! My own play!" Her eyes misted over with joy._

_"I mean it, darling. You are my muse. I haven't written a play in three whole years; I haven't had the inspiration. But you lit a fire in me, pussycat!"_

_Ginger rewarded him with a kiss on the cheek, but the man turned his head suddenly and they melted together in a fiery embrace. After a few moments, he broke the kiss and stared into her green eyes._

_"Think of it, pussycat. Your name in Broadway lights, bigger than Ethel Merman.. Bigger than Julie Andrews. Bigger than…than Angela Lansbury!"_

_She closed her eyes, as he wove his promising tale of her big break, her discovery and surefire subsequent fame._

_"Oh!" she cried. "You sure know how to make a girl feel special," she said. "Darling. How can I ever thank you?"_

_"I can think of a way," he replied slyly, raising an eyebrow._

_Ginger opened her eyes and gave him a knowing look._

_"And…just how should that happen?" she asked, playfully wrapping his ascot around her finger, moving closer._

"Oh, Gilligan, you just don't understand," sniffled Ginger, as she got up from the rock, clutching her script. She missed Broadway, and she missed George and she missed what had and might have been. "You don't understand! This play was especially written for me. I would have been famous overnight if I got to do it! All Broadway would have been at my feet!" _And maybe I could have been Mrs. George Ingersoll, with hit after hit after hit written especially for me!_ She wondered, with a knot in her stomach, which lucky woman had replaced her.

"Gee," Gilligan replied.

She continued rhapsodizing about the career move she lost, and Gilligan suggested that she should be on the stage. She ran off crying again. Her depression was so great she refused to eat for the rest of the day, choosing instead to cry in her hut. Mary Ann and the Skipper tried making her a fruit salad, but she wouldn't touch it. Gilligan ended up eating it, instead.

When Gilligan suggested doing a play later on, Ginger's mood brightened considerably. After kissing him in the hut, she got set to play the role of her life, somewhere in the south Pacific. In some small way, performing George's play would ease the pain of losing out on what could have been. Oh, if only she hadn't run off to Hawaii with Randolph! She should have stuck to her guns and remained in New York that fateful weekend. She took Mary Ann's necklace off and went off into the jungle to look for palm fronds for her costume.

-vVv- 

_**1947, USC Campus, Los Angeles, CA**_

_Eighteen year old Roy Hinkley needed a change. The college dramatics club was holding auditions for an upcoming production of Hamlet, and he wanted to be in it. In her last letter from home, his younger sister Jane had suggested he try out for a play. He didn't want to tell his parents about his endeavours, as they felt the theatre was frivolous and would distract him from his studies._

_"Roy Hinkley," the drama teacher called._

_"FROSH!" giggled the front row of drama students, pointing at him as he walked onstage. Roy Hinkley stood there stiffly, adjusting his jacket and small bow tie, suddenly overly aware of the dozen pairs of eyes staring at him. He swallowed at the sudden scrutiny, feeling his hands beginning to sweat in fear._

_"And what is your audition reading?" the teacher asked, sleepily._

_"Laertes, son of Polonius," the young man replied._

_"Alright, go ahead," said the teacher. Roy cleared his throat and began a bit flatly, then overcompensating with dramatic tones:_

_"My necessaries are embarked. Farewell. And, sister, as the winds give benefit and convey is assistant, do not sleep, but let me hear from you."_

_The drama teacher waved his hands. "That's enough, thank you. Roy, I suggest you stop trying to do those absurd Cary Grant impressions and learn how to do SHAKESPEARE. That was one of the most idiotic renditions of Laertes I've ever seen."_

_Roy's shoulders slumped. The drama teacher walked up and apologized. "Don't take it so hard, Roy," he said. "We can always use someone to paint the sets. Why don't you help Kenny get started on painting those walls white back there?"_

_Roy brightened a bit. "Alright," he said, taking off the bow tie and jacket, feeling a mixture of defeat and relief. For all the things he WAS good at, acting was not going to be one of his strong suits._

The Professor was absently painting the finishing touches on the arches on the doorframe when he heard quiet sniffling on the other side. He popped the door open gently and saw Mary Ann sitting behind the stage, crying.

"What's wrong?" he asked, putting down the coconut cup and paintbrush. He walked down the stairs and sat beside her on the ground. She wiped her eyes and averted her face.

"Oh, it's silly," she replied.

"Tell me what happened." Something in his tone calmed her a bit, and she took a deep breath.

"I got bumped," she said, wiping her eyes. "Mr. Howell said that I was a rotten actress. Don't quit your day job," she added, making a moping face. "Meaning what, I'm only good enough to make the food?"

"Why, that scoundrel!" the Professor exclaimed, his face reddening.

"I always wanted to act in a play! But – well, you know what I mean," she continued.

"You sounded great when you were helping the Skipper read! A natural director – oh, never mind." he said, realizing what really had happened. "Do you want me to talk to Mr. Howell? I'm about to give him a piece of my mind!" She shook her head.

"Oh no, Professor, I don't want to start any more drama. There's already enough going on between the leading lady and the producer's wife. This play was really all about cheering up Ginger, anyway. I don't know why I'm so worked up over it."

Her shoulders slumped and the Professor silently fumed. This feud between the women over this play was starting to get out of hand. There was no reason to hurt Mary Ann's feelings like this. The Professor remembered the sting of the disastrous audition seventeen years ago and nodded. "I know how that feels."

"You do?"

He told her what happened in college, and said that he ended up enjoying backstage work from then on. It gave him a creative outlet, something he sorely lacked when in the research lab.

She looked up at him and finally smiled, her face finally brightening a bit. "Thanks, Professor. I guess I needed a pep talk. They always make me feel so unimportant."

"My dear, you underestimate your importance. In fact, I need some help making some paint for the windows. Care to take a break from those costumes and help me pick some jungle berries?" He got up and offered her a hand.

"Boy, do I ever. Do you know how hard it is to sew leaves on coconut matting?"

She took the proffered hand and he helped her back to her feet. And for a few more minutes, her hand remained firmly in his as they headed into the jungle, as he convinced himself he was merely 'helping her through the thick overgrowth.' 

-vVv- 

_**1958, Two Blocks Down From The Roxy Theatre, Los Angeles, CA**_

_Jonas "Jonny" Grumby was on shore leave with his ship buddy Tom Mallory. They had just finished a cargo ship run between Honolulu and California, and with their new windfall, they decided to treat themselves to a night on the town._

_"Let's check out the premiere down the street," Tom suggested. "It looks like they're showing Attack of the 50 Foot Anteater. We might see a couple of famous people there. It'll be a gas."_

_"Sounds good to me," Jonas replied enthusiastically. The two men changed out of their work clothes into suits and fedoras, and headed towards the large crowd of clamouring newspaper reporters, radio announcers, and photographers clutching their Graflexes._

_"We'll never get a glimpse of anyone in this crowd. Who's starring in this picture, anyway?" asked Jonas._

_"That Ginger Grant dame, the redhead with the big knockers in San Quentin Blues," he replied, drawing an hourglass figure in the air for effect._

_"Alright, that's worth seeing," Jonas replied._

_They stood in the crowd, being shuffled back and forth. It was getting a little claustrophobic as the people started getting restless, looking for Miss Grant's limo. She was twenty minutes late, and the premiere couldn't begin without her._

_Jonas shrugged his shoulders and walked to the corner to have a cigarette. He didn't care for crowds. His friend joined him a few minutes later._

_"Ah, this is for the birds, Jonny," Tom grumbled, bumming a Camel off his pal. "But man, what I wouldn't give to be stuck somewhere alone with Ginger Grant. Va-va-voom! Whatta woman!"_

_The Skipper took a long, well-deserved drag from his cigarette, tossing the match in the street. "Well, we can only dream of that ever happening, Tom," he replied, just as the limo rounded the corner and the crowd erupted into cheers. The two men stood in awe as the statuesque actress with the Titian hair exited the limo with her escort, waving to fans, signing a few autographs._

_"Well, get a good look now, Jonny," Tom said a little sadly. "That's the closest you and me'll ever get to a classy dame like her."_

"OH MY FAIR QUEEN! COME AWAY WITH ME AND SHARE –"

The Skipper stood in the clearing, reading over his part. Rehearsing was going well, although he found it hard to remember his lines without a coach. Mary Ann had helped him earlier, until Mr. Howell had seen what a good job Mary Ann had been doing as a director, and chewed her out, telling her what a rotten actress she was. She ran off crying, god knows where. The Professor was nowhere to be seen – he was probably with Mary Ann, he figured. Although Mr. Howell had been out of line, the Skipper had too much work to do before sorting out the theatrical drama. This was his big chance, in more ways than one. Not only did he land the lead role (easily beating out the Professor's terrible acting), on page 27, right there, the script called for a passionate kiss.

_A passionate kiss with Ginger Grant!_ He thought excitedly. _Somewhere Tom Mallory is seething in jealousy._ He looked over the script some more. Not just one kiss – three, and at the end of the last, they marry and move into their own pyramid!

He could hardly believe his luck.

He could hardly believe his nerves.

_Don't blow it, Grumby," _he muttered to himself. Suddenly, he heard Ginger coming up the path, searching for him.

"Are you ready to rehearse our big scene, Skipper?" she asked, winking.

He thought he was going to melt through the ground.


End file.
